This – only the second photography exhibition in Dulwich Picture Gallery’s history – is a quietly contemplative but gripping show that traces two intersecting developments: the construction of the modern urban environment and the language of photography.
Focusing exclusively on works from era-defining photographers of the 20th century made in cities across the US, it’s a concise overview that begins with the pictorialist pioneers of New York, Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen, and keeps moving through masterpieces, starting with early examples of social documentary photography – Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother and White Angel Breadline, and Lewis Hine’s emblematic portrait of the high-steel ironworker Victor “Frenchy” Gosselin working on the construction of the Empire State Building.
