GROUNDBREAKING INCLUSIVITY
The MET's "New" Woman Behind the Camera
The New Woman of the 1920s was an expression of modernity, a global phenomenon that embodied female empowerment based on real women making revolutionary changes in life and art. At The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, The New Woman Behind the Camera features 185 photographs by 120 photographers from over 20 countries. “The women featured are responsible for shifting the direction of modern photography, and it is exhilarating to witness the accomplishments of these extraordinary practitioners,” said Marina Kellen French, Director of The Met.
The New Woman of the 1920s was splashed across magazine pages and projected throughout Hollywood films. Her image, a woman with bobbed hair, style, and unabashed confidence, was inspiring and controversial. For some of these daring women, the camera was a “means to assert their self-determination and artistic expression.” The exhibition highlights the work of the “new” women who made significant advances in modern photography from the 1920s to the 1950s. During this time women stood at the forefront of camera experimentation, and the images reflected their experiences and the social and political transformations of the era.
Commercial studios were an entry point into photography, allowing women to forge careers, make their own money, run successful businesses in Berlin, Buenos Aires, and Vienna, plus earn recognition as the first female photographers in their respective countries. In addition, photography studios run by Black American women, such as Florestine Perrault Collins, countered racist images that were circulating in the mass media.
The exhibition showcases women photographers who explored city life and the diversity of an urban experience. Women traveled for the first time and took photographs documenting their observations abroad in Africa, China, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. This period also gave rise to new ideas about health and sexuality. Women photographers such as Lotte Jacobi, Jeanne Mandello, and Germaine Krull produced images of liberated modern bodies, from pioneering nude photographs to pictures of sport and dance.
In photojournalism, many women photographers, including Lucy Ashjian, Margaret Bourke-White, Kati Horna, Dorothea Lange, and Hansel Mieth, created images that exposed injustice and swayed public opinion. While women photojournalists often received “soft assignments,” others risked their lives on the battlefield. The exhibition features combat photographs by Thérèse Bonney, Galina Sanko, and Gerda Taro, including views of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps by Lee Miller. Views of Hiroshima by Tsuneko Sasamoto and photographs of the newly formed People’s Republic of China. “Though the New Woman is often regarded as a Western phenomenon,” said French, “this exhibition proves otherwise by bringing together rarely seen photographs from around the world and presenting a nuanced, global history of photography.”
The New Woman Behind the Camera at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC through October 3, 2021.
