A Photographer's Gallery (March 1955 – 1957), 48 West 85th Street,Melissa Rachleff, ''Afterimage'', January–February 1997.
/ref> on the

Upper West Side The Upper West Side (UWS) is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Central Park on the east, the Hudson River on the west, West 59th Street to the south, and West 110th Street to the north. The Upper We ...

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

in New York City, founded and opened by Roy DeCarava, was an early effort to gain recognition for photography as an art form. It exhibited art photography intended for walls in homes, and offices, along with paintings.

Exhibitions

Exhibitions at A Photographer's Gallery lasted four to six weeks, unusual at the time. Roy DeCarava believed that artists deserved an opportunity to have their work interact with as broad an audience as possible. To that end, he was committed to showing exhibitions in an environment that was respectful to the artists and thus had a dedicated, clean wall gallery space. There were a number of one-man exhibitions, but most of the time the gallery featured group shows, giving both new and more established photographers the opportunity to show, and to interact with, others in the exhibition process.

Photographers

Some of the photographers who were exhibited at A Photographer's Gallery, in addition to Roy DeCarava, were:

Berenice Abbott Berenice Alice Abbott (July 17, 1898 – December 9, 1991) was an American photographer best known for her portraits of cultural figures of the interwar period, New York City photographs of architecture and urban design of the 1930s, and science ...

, Hugh Bell, Hal Berg,

Ruth Bernhard Ruth Bernhard (October 14, 1905 – December 18, 2006) was a German-born American photographer.Sabin Russell,Ruth Bernhard: Photographer of nudes and still lifes (obituary), ''San Francisco Chronicle,'' December 19, 2006. Early life and educatio ...

, Lou Bernstein, Harry Callahan, Van Deren Coke, Rufus Graham,

Sid Grossman Sid Grossman (June 25, 1913 in Manhattan – December 31, 1955 in Provincetown) was an American photographer, teacher, and social activist. Life Sid Grossman was the younger son of Morris and Ethel Grossman. He attended the City College of ...

, Scott Hyde, Raymond Jacobs, Art Kane, Harry Lapow, Leon Levenstein, Ralph Eugene Meatyard (whose national career was established by his exhibition at the gallery),

Jay Maisel Jay Maisel (born January 18, 1931) is an American photographer. His awards include the Art Directors Club Hall of Fame, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Media Photographers,

Lisette Model Lisette Model (born Elise Amelie Felicie Stern; November 10, 1901 – March 30, 1983) was an Austrian-born American photographer primarily known for the frank humanism of her street photography. A prolific photographer in the 1940s and a member ...

David Vestal David Vestal (March 21, 1924 – December 5, 2013) was an American photographer of the New York school, a critic, and teacher. Career Vestal was born on March 21, 1924, in Menlo Park, California. He studied painting at the Art Institute of Chi ...

, Dan Weiner,

Minor White Minor Martin White (July 9, 1908 – June 24, 1976) was an American photographer, theoretician, critic, and educator. White made photographs of landscapes, people, and abstract subject matter. They showed technical mastery and a strong sense o ...

, and Tad Yamashiro. There were other participating photographers, but the guest book that contained all exhibition invitations (and signatures of guests) was recently lost. Invitations to the exhibitions were usually designed by the photographer being exhibited. However, Roy DeCarava designed several invitations, since he had an extensive graphic arts background.

The gallery

The gallery was housed in a traditional New York City brownstone building on the ground level, and had its own entrance. This was an apartment that DeCarava and his then wife, Anne, converted utilizing more than of white walls, with a tall free-standing room divider, that added considerably more gallery wall space. This arrangement enabled him to support the gallery inasmuch as sales were slight and prints sold for very little. However, a seasonal group show designed to encourage the purchase of signed, and sometimes numbered, photographic prints for Christmas gifts was exceptionally successful. Roy DeCarava always believed that art should be available and affordable to all people and so his commissions were kept low, generally 10% or less of the sale price. He continued exhibiting his own work during that period while also holding a 9 to 5 job in an ad agency. The gallery closed in June 1957 after the marriage of DeCarava to Anne Strasser ended in divorce. She later remarried and became Anne Kurakin. Roy DeCarava went on to have a world-renowned career as an artistDeCarava, Roy & Short, Alvia Wardlaw & Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (1976). Roy DeCarava : photographs : the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, September 12-October 26, 1975. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Tex

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Photographer's Gallery, A Photography museums and galleries in the United States 1955 establishments in New York City 1957 disestablishments in New York (state) Art museums and galleries established in 1955 Art museums and galleries disestablished in 1957 Upper West Side