Bernard Safran: Paintings
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New York City in Photographs, 1962-72

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Lord and Taylor
Lord and Taylor

 
Woman and Barber Pole
Woman and Barber Pole

 
Street Tough
Street Tough

 
Fruit Market
Fruit Market

 
Subway Riders
Subway Riders

 
Women at Lunch Counter
Women at Lunch Counter

 
Mirror Man
Mirror Man

 
Newsstand
Newsstand

 
      Bernard Safran took thousands of photographs of New York City over a span of about 20 years. In the 1950s he began experimenting with black and white photography of street scenes, informally documenting the everyday life of the city. We include two early photos from these forays; the photo of a woman carrying a shopping bag from Lord and Taylor, and the portrait of a construction worker in Uptown.

In the mid-1960s Safran undertook an ambitious project to photograph the unvarnished reality of everyday life in Manhattan. These photographs, the source material for a series of oil paintings of New York scenes, are a fascinating historical record of the lifestyle, culture and fashions of the era.

Not taken with any agenda or subtext, these photographs comprise a personal record of what Safran saw and paid attention to. A personal archive, captured with an artist's eye, the photographs were never publicly exhibited.


With thousands of images to choose from, I have selected a small number that I thought were striking examples of his photography. I have included some personal commentary with several of the images. -- EM