Image of Gallery in South Kensington
On display at V&A South Kensington
Photography Centre, Room 100, The Bern and Ronny Schwartz Gallery

We New Yorkers

Photograph
1942 (photographed)
Artist/Maker

Black and white photograph depicting high-rise buildings at night, with miscellaneous lights on inside various windows. In the foreground stands a human figure made from arterial matter


Object details

Category
Object type
TitleWe New Yorkers (popular title)
Materials and techniques
Gelatin silver print
Brief description
Photograph by Josef Breitenbach, 'We New Yorkers', gelatin silver print, 1942
Physical description
Black and white photograph depicting high-rise buildings at night, with miscellaneous lights on inside various windows. In the foreground stands a human figure made from arterial matter
Dimensions
  • Sheet length: 32.7cm
  • Sheet width: 26cm
Style
Gallery label
  • In 1941, the German-Jewish photographer Josef Breitenbach fled Europe to seek refuge in New York. This work, made shortly after his arrival, is an illustration of the human nervous system, layered over a composite image of two skyscrapers at night, their lights twinkling. The combination of imagery represents the human body as tied to the city, which in turn becomes a living, breathing entity through its inhabitants.(May 2023)
  • Gallery 100, 2016-17: Josef Breitenbach (1896–1984) ‘We New Yorkers’ 1942 Breitenbach fled Europe for New York in 1941. Though not officially a Surrealist, he shared the movement’s interest in dreams and the unconscious mind. In this fusion of drawing and photograph, a ghostly, arterial figure represents humanity and its vitality, amid the city lights. Gelatin silver print Given by the artist Museum no. Ph.291-1985
  • Excerpt from exhibition label, 'Towards a Bigger Picture', V&A, 1987. From a longer joint label with Herbert Bayer, 'Auto-Portrait'. We New Yorkers was made shortly after Breitenbach arrived in New York from his native Germany in 1942. His response to Manhattan and its inhabitants was to suggest a very basic metaphoric equation between the two; the arterial systems of the body and the city becoming in his mind manifestations of a single biological order. If we consider Breitenbach's situation - his arrival in this place of refuge - then the metaphor is kind to the city, according it life and cohesion. Reflecting upon his immediate past in Europe, however, the metaphor may perhaps involve fears for Man's nature and thus work in another way, suggesting an automatic, unfeeling side to human conduct. A similar dualism involving the body is present in Roberta Graham's 'Life Sighs in Sleep' (see 'Towards a Bigger Picture'), her work exploring the cultural links we make between love and death.(1987)
Credit line
Bequest under the terms of Josef Breitenbach's will
Bibliographic references
  • Breitenbach, Joseph. Manifesto. Portland, Ore.: Nazraeli Press, Dec 2007: Born in Munich in 1896, Josef Breitenbach began taking photographs while working in the family wine merchant business. Proving less than successful at the latter, he opened his first photographic studio in 1932. Munich at that time was a stronghold of libertarians and bon vivants, and Breitenbach's clients included actors, cabaret stars, writers and political figures. It was a short-lived venture; when Hitler became Chancellor in 1933, the photographer escaped to Paris, where he stayed for the next six years. There, Breitenbach's close friendship with Max Ernst, and his experimentation with printing technique and color manipulation, brought him into contact with the thriving Surrealist movement, although he never became a member of that group. His work was included in a number of exhibitions, alongside that of Man Ray, Brassai and Cartier-Bresson. After the outbreak of war, and a period of internment, he fled to New York and established himself as a teacher and commercial photographer. However, his early work remained unseen until its surprise discovery, after his death, in 1984. Published in association with The Josef Breitenbach Trust, Manifesto is an important addition to the literature available on this extraordinary artist.
  • Promotional material from 2001 exhibition organised by The Fox Talbot Museum: Desperately poor, Breitenbach often sacrificed food for film, yet frequented a circle of artists and writers including Max Ernst, Bertold Brecht and James Joyce. He rarely made a portrait at the first meeting and visited Joyce five times before photographing him in his study. His famous portrait of Bertold Brecht was made in a patch of lamplight outside a Montparnasse theatre after the opening of The Rifles of Mother Carrar, Brecht's play about Francisco Franco, the Dictator of Spain.
Collection
Accession number
PH.291-1985

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Record createdJune 30, 2009
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