Dulwich's 'Portrait of a City' Review: A Century of US Street
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- Portrait of a City marks only the second photography exhibition in Dulwich Picture Gallery's history, tracing the development of the modern US cityscape through 20th-century master photographers until 4 October
- The exhibition draws exclusively from the DNB Savings Bank Foundation collection, limiting curatorial choices but securing works by Stieglitz, Steichen, Diane Arbus, Saul Leiter, Richard Avedon, Mary Ellen Mark, and Ilse Bing
- Dorothea Lange's 'Migrant Mother' and 'White Angel Breadline' anchor the show's social documentary section, alongside Lewis Hine's portrait of ironworker Victor 'Frenchy' Gosselin on the Empire State Building
- A 44-second 1931 film clip of the White Angel soup kitchen in San Francisco is screened alongside Lange's Great Depression photograph, set to a swing soundtrack and depicting a lively, community-run space that contrasts with the image's grim loneliness
- Almost all featured photographers are first- or second-generation European immigrants, framing the American city narrative as one shaped by outsiders seeking to 'take hold of' urban overwhelm
- Bruce Davidson's 1980s Leica shots of New York's graffiti-covered subway carriages close the show, immersing viewers in motion, crimson sunset light, and the collisions of culture, age, race, and class
Why it matters: By sourcing every work from a single corporate collection, the show offers a tightly curated but inevitably limited lens on a century of American urban photography — meaning visitors see a connoisseur's edit rather than a comprehensive survey, with European immigrant perspectives dominating the telling of the American city.
