Portrait of a City

Portrait of a City: A Century of American Photography traces a century of American urban life through the camera lens, from Alfred Stieglitz’s early Modernist visions to Bruce Davidson’s immersive Subway photographs of the 1980s. Published to accompany the exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery, the book brings together works by some of the most influential photographers of the twentieth century, including Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Diane Arbus, Helen Levitt, Saul Leiter, Garry Winogrand and Bruce Davidson. Across themes of immigration, labour, inequality, counterculture and community, the city emerges as both backdrop and protagonist in the story of modern America. Combining iconic images with new scholarship, the publication explores photography’s dual role as artistic expression and social document.