‘The New Woman Behind The Camera’ @ National Gallery x Metropolitan Museum of Art

“Woman photographers are still vastly under-represented in scholarship and exhibitions of the modern period”

I am going to lightly preface this review by mentioning that I have no qualification to write critically about photography. As you are about to read, I dropped unaware into an exhibition space completely by chance on a Sunday afternoon and was quickly enraptured by both the prints on display and the narratives in their company.  

It is also important to consider the pre-texts accompanying the exhibition regarding self-identification.  Photographers are referenced with their professional names. Further, gender/woman is acknowledged as a heterogenous point of context and while “woman photographer” can be a “prescriptive” nomination, “it remains a useful framework for analysis.”  

(Right) The façade of the Met on July 4, 2021. (Middle) Cat. No. 119 / Object ID: 5280-076 Annelise Kretschmer Junges Mädchen (Young Woman), 1928 gelatin silver print image: 46.7 x 39.8 cm (18 3/8 x 15 11/16 in.) frame: 65 x 50 cm (25 9/16 x 19 11/16 in.) frame (outer): 67 x 52 x 3 cm (26 3/8 x 20 1/2 x 1 3/16 in.) Museum Folkwang, Essen © Christiane von Königslöw. Photo © Museum Folkwang Essen – ARTOTHEK (Right) Entry to the exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The entryways leading to the exhibition are painted in an acidic, toadstool red. This abrupt interruption catches you off guard after walking through the marbled, stoic educational space which the Metropolitan Museum of Art embodies, enhanced further in its audacity by wall text in all caps reading “THE NEW WOMAN BEHIND THE CAMERA.” It is a tantalizing set up. 

I did not quite know what the exhibition would be about, even though the answer was right in front of me. This colorful aberration, fittingly aware of how out of place it looked, coaxed me into a gallery otherwise crisp and refined, with framed standard format black and white photographs, and I am glad. It is easy to be swept away by Modernist photography’s popular counterpart, painting, and forget to pore over the small provocateurs.  

The display is nevertheless formidable, not in measure of physical scale, but for the volume of collective research dedicated to dredging treasures to which historical canon has been inattentive. Over two hundred photographs, editorials, and books by more than one hundred and twenty international photographers, all listed in all-caps in bright red, consume the galleries. All given an announced space of their own, the photographs were divided among thematic sections canvassing the body, fashion, war, politics, and bold process experimentation.  

This exhibition began as a collaborative initiative between the National Gallery of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, postponed by the Covid-19 pandemic. It is here now though, and it is refreshing.  

The research was generated by Andrea Nelson, associate curator at the National Gallery, when she was ‘awakened’ by the gallery’s collection of photographs by Ilse Bing. This led her to delve into the greater history behind these photographs and further, to the women who took them. Because if there is Ilse, there are more. As she states in the preface of the catalogue:  

“Despite commendable efforts by numerous academics and curators [...], women photographers are still vastly under-represented in scholarship and exhibitions of the modern period.”  

Cat. No. 256 / Object ID: 5280-051 Ilse Bing Selbstporträt mit Leica (Self-Portrait with Leica), 1931 gelatin silver print image: 26.67 x 30.48 cm (10 1/2 x 12 in.) frame: 50.8 x 40.64 cm (20 x 16 in.) frame (outer): 53.34 x 43.18 cm (21 x 17 in.) Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg. Photo courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington.

Although celebrated by their contemporaries while independently operating commercial photography studios and participating in historic modernist exhibitions, the majority of these figures have been neglected. Therefore Nelson, Fineman, and their colleagues in modernist photographic history sought to expand this commendable effort on an international front, their figurehead embodied by the iconic 1920’s New Woman. 

“Easy to recognize, but hard to define,” the New Woman is Chemical X here. Although defined differently across locations and time periods, the New Woman as a force avant-garde after World War I pervades the space. Underpinned by turbulent decades – witness to two world wars, global economic depression, racism, rising fascism and communism – the exhibition explores the “transnational realities of modernism and the intersecting and tangent lines of photographic practice being pursued by women” with their resulting film work being foundational for modern photography. It is not so much about how the New Woman appeared (although that is delightfully present as well), but how she looked through the lens, and what she captured at pivotal points in history. 

The images themselves were stunning. As standalone works of art divorced from their narrative, each photograph was independently arresting with dynamic compositions and alternative process exploration. These prints are appended by contextual narratives which are completely engrossing, and which rhythmically exploit the non-linear historic space. With no hard answers provided, visitors are given the flexibility to explore and construct the identity of the New Woman and her influence on modernist photography. Notable as well is the intersectional voice with which the themes are introduced, acknowledging faults in artistic voice and the complexity of representation in good faith. 

I was not the only one in the exhibition clamoring over the wall text. I’ve honestly yet to see anything like it, either. Forced to pace slowly, stopping at each photograph and story in turn among other visitors patiently waiting, assessing, returning to read and soak in the narratives on display. I bumped into another individual on accident who bashfully exclaimed “Ah sorry, just so much to take in here!”  

The National Gallery and Metropolitan Museum succeeded here where many museums lately have struggled; providing an exhibition which is not just beautifully executed, but also interesting, informative, and feels deeply personal to those involved in its inception. The passion with which this project was brought to fruition was palpably catching on with every visitor in the space. 

Still fresh from the effect of an exhibition in which works from the 1920’s to the 1950’s still feel hyper-modern in 2021, I want to highlight some of the photographs I found most striking, and their accompanying stories in short form: 

HANSEL MIETH, March of Dimes Dance, 1943, gelatin silver print, Collection of Ron Perisho. 

As German emigrants Mieth and her husband struggled during the Great Depression, they began to document the California social landscape on 35mm. Mieth documented conditions in California including the Hoovervilles and labor strikes.  She was the second woman photographer hired at Life after Margaret Bourke-White (keep reading).  

The March of Dimes Dance was by far my favorite in this exhibition and the memory of the image stays with me. Taken at a Japenese Internment Camp in Wyoming, the image was held from publication due to the empathy with which the image was taken. It was not published until 1995. 

Cat. No. 35 / Object ID: 5280-127 Hansel Mieth March of Dimes Dance, 1943 gelatin silver print image/sheet: 33 x 26.8 cm (13 x 10 9/16 in.) frame: 55.88 x 45.72 cm (22 x 18 in.) frame (outer): 58.42 x 48.26 cm (23 x 19 in.) Collection of Ron Perisho. Photo courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington.

GRETE STERN, Sueno no. 1: Articulos electricos para el hogar (“Dream No. 1: Electrical Applicances for the Home”), 1949, gelatin silver print, Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

Part of a 150-part photo-montage series interpreting women’s dreams in Idilio magazine, Dream No. 1: Electrical Appliances for the Home is a stunner. As one of the larger pieces on display, I was honestly surprised at it being hung in a corner. Understandably therefore, one had to be patient to see it. German-Argentinian photographer Grete Stern introduced New Vision techniques to photography. As fascism spread through Germany, Stern and her husband emigrated to London where she set up a commercial studio.  

Cat. No. 67 / Object ID: 5280-048 Grete Stern Sueño No. 1: "Articulos eléctricos para el hogar" (Dream No. 1: "Electrical Appliances for the Home"), 1949 gelatin silver print image: 46.4 x 39.8 cm (18 1/4 x 15 11/16 in.) mat: 76.2 x 63.5 cm (30 x 25 in.) frame (outer): 78.4 x 65.4 cm (30 7/8 x 25 3/4 in.) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Twentieth-Century Photography Fund, 2012 (2012.10) Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington.

MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE, Flood Relief, Louisville, Kentucky, 1937, gelatin silver print, Keith de Lellis, New York. 

Margaret Bourke-White was a war correspondent and photojournalist. Bourke-White was photographing the aftermath of the Ohio River flood when she captured this image for Life magazine. The poignant photo of citizens lining up for relief services in front of billboard reading “world’s highest standard of living” over a middle-class smiling white family “captures the disconnect between the whitewashed idealism of American popular media and the difficulty of everyday life in the U.S, especially for Black citizens.”  

Cat. No. 154 / Object ID: 5280-148 Margaret Bourke-White Flood Relief, Louisville, Kentucky, 1937 gelatin silver print image: 27.94 x 35.56 cm (11 x 14 in.) sheet: 40.64 x 50.8 cm (16 x 20 in.) frame: 50.8 x 60.96 cm (20 x 24 in.) frame (outer): 53.34 x 63.5 cm (21 x 25 in.) Keith De Lellis, NY Margaret Bourke-White / The Life Picture Collection via Getty Images.

YVA, Ohne Titel (Schmuck) (“Untitled (Jewelry)”), c. 1930, gelatin silver print, Berlinische Galerie – Landesmuseum fur Moderne Kunst, Fotografie, und Architektur. 

YVA, Jewelry, c. 1930, gelatin silver print, National Gallery of Art. 

I read through this wall text a few times. It is hard to take in the tragedy, so it’s necessary to let it simmer with you in the space.  

Yva owned a photo studio in Berlin and was a notoriously talented commercial fashion photographer. In 1933, she was listed as a Jewish business owner. She transferred ownership and continued to work at the studio until 1938, when its closure was forced. In 1942, Yva and her husband were deported to concentration camp Majdanek. They were both killed at the concentration camp. Yva was 42. 

Cat. No. 218 / Object ID: 5280-018 Yva Ohne Titel (Schmuck) (Untitled [Jewelry]), c. 1930 gelatin silver print image: 19.05 x 15.24 cm (7 1/2 x 6 in.) frame: 45.72 x 35.56 cm (18 x 14 in.) frame (outer): 50.17 x 40.01 cm (19 3/4 x 15 3/4 in.) National Gallery of Art, Washington, Corcoran Collection (Gift of the Women's Committee of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Brenda and Robert Edelson Collection) Photo courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington.

I hope you exit this little review with a new photographer to research, an exhibition to meander through, or a book to read. The photographers in this exhibition are a critical landmark in the history of modern photography and historic documentation.  

Pursuant to the project’s initiating sentiment, however, the research is wanting further critical historic analysis. This is a delight to witness, and I anticipate keeping abreast of this field and what will hopefully be MANY more exhibitions drilling into the nuance of the New Woman. 

The New Woman Behind the Camera opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City on July 2, 2021 and closes October 3, 2021. I recommend it highly as I have returned to this exhibition a few times now. 

If you cannot make it to the exhibition before its closure, the eponymous catalogue filled with groundbreaking research, all the stories, and beautifully printed reproductions is worth a long weekend read. 

#NewWomanPhotographers 

Veda Lane

Contributing Writer, MADE IN BED