Portrait of a City exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery

Dulwich Picture Gallery is currently hosting 'Portrait of a City', an exhibition that delves into the American urban landscape through a century of photography. The show features works from acclaimed photographers such as Alfred Stieglitz, Dorothea Lange, and Diane Arbus, offering a look at city life across the United States.

A Collection Focused on Urban Development

This exhibition is notable as it exclusively presents photographs from the DNB Savings Bank Foundation collection. The collection focuses on the evolution of the modern urban environment and the development of photographic language during the 20th century. The works trace this development from the early pictorialist photographers in New York, including Stieglitz and Edward Steichen, through to social documentary photography.

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Photographers represented include Ilse Bing, Mary Ellen Mark, Saul Leiter, and Richard Avedon, among others. The exhibition highlights iconic images such as Dorothea Lange's 'Migrant Mother' and 'White Angel Breadline', and Lewis Hine's portrait of an ironworker on the Empire State Building construction.

Diverse Perspectives on City Life

The photographs capture various facets of urban existence, from the early 20th century to the 1980s. Images depict the grit and glory of cityscapes, including scenes of crime, social conditions during the Great Depression, and the anonymity of urban life. The exhibition also explores the influence of artistic movements like abstract expressionism on photography, as seen in Aaron Siskind's 'Harlem Document'.

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Later sections of the exhibition focus on the city at night, with works by Weegee capturing sensationalist snapshots of New York after dark. The show also features Roy DeCarava's 'Hallway', an image of a dimly lit tenement corridor, and Garry Winogrand's approach to capturing the overwhelming nature of the city. The exhibition concludes with images from the 1980s, including Bruce Davidson's photographs of graffiti-covered subway trains.

'Portrait of a City: A Century of American Photography' is on display at Dulwich Picture Gallery until 4 October.