New York Street Life - Coney Island, Harlem and Midtown Manhattan
Harvey Stein | June 8 – July 22, 2016
About the Artist
Harvey Stein is a professional photographer, teacher, lecturer, author and curator based in New York City. He currently teaches at the International Center of Photography. Stein is a frequent lecturer on photography both in the United States and abroad. He was the Director of Photography at Umbrella Arts Gallery, located in the East Village of Manhattan, from 2009 until 2019 when it lost its lease and closed. He has also been a member of the faculty of the School of Visual Arts, New School University, Drew University, Rochester Institute of Technology and the University of Bridgeport. A recipient of a Creative Arts Public Service (CAPS) fellowship and numerous artist in residency grants, Stein’s nineth and latest book Then and There: Mardi Gras 1979 was published by Zatara Press in October of 2020. Other books of Stein’s photographs are Parallels: A Look at Twins, E.P. Dutton (1978); Artists Observed, Harry Abrams, Inc. (1986); Coney Island, W.W. Norton, Inc. (1998); Movimento: Glimpses of Italian Street Life, Gangemi Editore, Rome (2006); Coney Island 40 Years, Schiffer Publishing, (2011); Harlem Street Portraits, Schiffer Publishing (2013); Briefly Seen New York Street Life, Schiffer Publishing (2015), and Mexico Between Life and Death, Kehrer Verlag (Germany, 2018). Stein’s photographs and portfolios have been published in such periodicals as The New Yorker, Time, Life, Esquire, American Heritage, Smithsonian, The New York Times, Reader’s Digest, Glamour, GQ Magazine (Mexico), Forbes, Psychology Today, Playboy, Harpers, Connoisseur, Art News, American Artist, New York, People, Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, The Hopkins Review (cover), Sun Magazine (cover) and all the major photo magazines, including Camera Arts, Black & White Magazine (cover), Shutterbug, Popular Photography, American Photo, Camera, Afterimage, PDN, Zoom, Rangefinder, Photo Metro, fotoMagazine (Germany), photo technique, Zeke and View Camera Magazine. Stein’s photographs have been widely exhibited in the United States and Europe—89 one-person and over 165 group shows to date. He has curated 67 exhibits since 2007. His photographs are in more than 58 permanent collections, including the George Eastman Museum, Bibliotheque Nationale, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the International Center of Photography, the Denver Museum of Art, the Carnegie Museum of Art (Pittsburgh), the Portland (Oregon) Museum of Art, the Museum of the City of New York, Museet for Fotokunst (Odense, Denmark), Musee De La Photographie (Charleroi, Belguim), the Portland (Maine) Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the Addison Gallery of American Art, The New York Historical Society and Museum, The Brooklyn Historical Society, and among others, the corporate collections of Johnson & Johnson, Hewlett Packard, LaSalle Bank (Chicago), Barclay Bank and Credit Suisse. Stein’s work is represented by Sous Les Etoiles Gallery, New York City.
New York Street Life – Coney Island, Harlem and Midtown Manhattan
My subject is the mosaic of New York City daily life. Even though I photograph people in public situations, I aim to portray intimate moments, emotional behavior, individuals living intensely, lyrically, sensuously, and with humor.
My interest is to reveal psychological states with meaning and to explore the intertwined elements of happy and sad moments; the familiar and the unexpected. I give evidence to life that is never true but always real, that often appears absurd, even surreal.
The subjects in my work and in this exhibit are mostly strangers who I’ve encountered during more than 45 years of photographing in New York City. They are diverse, ordinary people caught up in the turmoil of living, being, moving, and getting along. The images visually portray instants of recognition embodied in a fraction of a second; the ordinary made transcendent. Most tell a story: ambiguous, mysterious, surprising perhaps. I wish to convey a sense of life glimpsed, a sense of contingency and ephemerality.
I believe photographs speak to us; they are reminders of the past. To look at a family album is to recall vanished memories or to see old friends materialize before our eyes. In making photographs, the photographer is simultaneously a witness to the instant and a recorder of its demise; this is the camera’s power. Photography’s magic is its ability to touch, inspire, sadden, and to connect to each viewer according to that person’s unique sensibility and history. In experiencing these glimpses of New York life, we may in turn become more aware and knowing of our own lives.
For me, photography is a way to learn about life, living and self. Mostly I do long-term projects that are always of personal interest. Photography is the most meaningful thing I could ever do. It is my way of saying, ‘I am here’ and my way of sharing some of my life, experiences and understanding of the world with others.
— Harvey Stein
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