November 6, 2021 – January 2, 2022
Warner Gallery
Reception:
November 12, 2021 | 5:30–8:00 p.m. EST
Please join us for a free and public reception as we celebrate all of our fall exhibitions, including “Our Strength Is Our People”: The Humanist Photographs of Lewis Hine, Amy Elkins: Parting Words, and Rachelle Mozman Solano: All These Things I Carry With Me. David Acton, Curator of Photographs at the Snite Museum of Art, will speak about Lewis Hine and his work beginning at 6:30 p.m. EST.
This moving and memorable exhibition is a concise survey of the life’s work of Lewis Wickes Hine (1874-1940), the father of American documentary photography. Trained as a sociologist at the University of Chicago, NYU, and Columbia University, Hine became a high school teacher at New York’s Ethical Culture School, a bastion of progressive education. At the time, the roiling political issue was immigration – much as it is today. Many American citizens saw immigrants who flooded into their cities as threats to their jobs and their livelihoods. Meanwhile, the Progressive movement encouraged the viewpoint of America as a melting pot, a beacon of light for foreigners escaping poverty and tyranny. Armed with a clumsy large-format view camera and magnesium flash, Hine took his students to Ellis Island in 1905 and put a human face on the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
“Our Strength Is Our People”: The Humanist Photographs of Lewis Hine consists entirely of rare vintage or early prints, which are the purest expression of Hine’s lasting vision. Seven of these are master exhibition prints in the astonishing 16×20 inch size.
Image Credits:
All works are from the collection of Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg. This exhibition was organized by art2art Circulating Exhibitions.
