1940s

Latest Stories

Interviews

How Have Photographs Shaped Our Idea of Work?

An exhibition contends with the role of images, policy, and activism in forming our relationship to labor and the American Dream.

Photobooks

A Historic Archive’s Nightmarish Portrait of America

A new book reimagines the Depression-era photography of Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, and Gordon Parks, mapping a country of strangers and ghosts.

Reviews

One of Photography’s Most Enigmatic Love Triangles Finally Gets Its Due

In their book “Body Language,” Nick Mauss and Angela Miller show how a group of artists shaped a network of queer image culture decades before Stonewall.

Essays

How Elliott Erwitt Found His Signature Humor and Joy

Erwitt taught himself photography as a teenager. His most famous work was defined by wit, exuberance, and irrepressible curiosity.

Essays

Toyo Miyatake’s Indelible Record of Life inside the Manzanar Internment Camp

During World War II, Miyatake made surreptitious photographs of Japanese Americans incarcerated by the US government. He saw little need to glorify, humanize, or even individualize the prisoners—because he was one of them.

Reviews

Madame Yevonde’s Color Revolution

An exhibition in London of the artist and suffragette’s vibrant work uncovers a pioneer of photography.

From the Archive

A Literary Publisher’s Bold and Original Photographic Covers

New Directions covers from the mid-twentieth century are easy to spot but difficult to describe, often using pictures to describe words rather than the other way around.

Margaret Bourke‑White, Flame Burner Ann Zarik, 1943

Essays

An Exhibition Revives the Legacy of “Life” Magazine

The newsmagazine’s iconic and influential photo-essays were a collective effort. For contemporary artists, they’re rich territory for the interrogation of print media.