“NOT NICE GIRLS”

Photographs by Women 1930 – 1980

July 14 – August 29 1992

Sometime in the 1930’s, Berenice Abbott mentioned to a friend that she was planning to take some photographs on the Bowery on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The friend commented that “Nice girls don’t go to the· Bowery.” Abbott replied, “I’m not a nice girl, I’m a photographer.”

The goals of this exhibition are somewhat contradictory. Rather than focusing on characteristics which comprise a distinctly “feminine” approach to the art of photography we have sought instead to assemble a collection of images as widely diverse in style and subject matter as possible.

The emergence of women as professional photographers and photo-journalists between the World Wars signalled a dramatic breakthrough. In a traditionally male dominated field women not only excelled as artists and technicians, but also in their unflinching confrontation of the grim realities of poverty and war, thus permanenty removing the mythic sexual barriers that previously prevailed.

The exhibition includes works by: Berenice Abbott, Diane Arbus, Ilse Bing, Margaret Bourke-White, Imogen Cunningham, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Gisele Freund, Rosalie Gwathmey, Florence Henri, Lotte Jacobi, Consuelo Kanaga, Germaine Krull, Dorothea Lange, Helen Levitt, Dora Maai; Lisette Model, Dorothy Norman, Marion Palfy, Lilo Raymond, Diane Schmidt & Michele Fitzsimmons and Jane Wenger.

The Kelmscott Gallery is located at 4611 N. Lincoln Avenue. All works are for sale. For further information call 784 – 2559. Kelmscott