Photography icons Helmut Newton, Weegee, Irving Penn, Brassaï, Berenice Abbot, and Bill Brandt all feature in a new exhibition focusing on nightlife in New York City, Paris, and London.
The hedonistic display is housed at New York’s Marlborough Gallery and captures underground subcultures, illicit activities, and subversive fashions of the early 20th century.
Not all of the photos included in the exhibition were taken in the Big Apple. Brassaï and Bill Brandt worked in Paris and London respectively capturing the joie de vivre of European party-goers.
Brassaï would wander the streets of Paris at night equipped with the recent invention of the flashbulb, a camera, and a box of 24 glass plate negatives. Brandt was inspired by Brassaï which led to his photobook A Night in London chronicling the chaos of a British night out.
In New York, Berenice Abbott and Weegee would document nighttime scenes with Abbott capturing cityscapes and Weegee carried around a police radio scanner to arrive early at crime scenes.
Helmut Newton and Irving Penn are best known for their fashion photography but both captured New York at night. Newton’s provocative photography captures scantily clad women while Penn is best known for his pared-down fashion work for Vogue.
Marlborough Gallery in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan is celebrating this “pivotal period in the history of photography when the medium firmly established its position as an independent art form.”
Many of the photos exhibited are from the gallery’s extensive collection and have not been seen in decades. The exhibition also pays tribute to the role Marlborough played in displaying photography during the 1970s and 80s.
Nightlife is on at the Marlborough Gallery from March 7 until April 20. Head to the website for more.