Cruel Radiance: Photography, 1940s–1960s - The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Cruel Radiance: Photography, 1940s–1960s focuses on extraordinary recent gifts to The Met—especially those made in celebration of the Museum’s 150th anniversary in 2020. The show explores the flourishing of photography as a medium between World War II and the Vietnam War and includes several mini-monographic presentations on a group of diverse photographers including Helen Levitt, Roy DeCarava, Mario De Biasi, Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, Don McCullin, and Aaron Rose. The exhibition features classic photographs seldom seen, acquisitions that the Museum has not yet exhibited, and magazines and books by Japanese photographers—also notable gifts to The Met and works of art in their own right. The show’s title is borrowed from Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, James Agee and Walker Evans’s collaborative depression-era masterpiece published in 1941. Agee writes about what he believed was Evans’s (and photography’s) greatest achievement and challenge: “all of consciousness is shifted from the imagined … to the effort to perceive simply the cruel radiance of what is.”

The exhibition is made possible by The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, Inc.

Exhibition Objects

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Seaford, East Sussex Coast, Bill Brandt British, born Germany, Gelatin silver print — Seaford, East Sussex Coast
Bill Brandt (British (born Germany), Hamburg 1904–1983 London)
1957

Man in Times Square, New York, Louis Stettner American, Gelatin silver print — Man in Times Square, New York
Louis Stettner (American, New York 1922–2016 Saint-Ouen, France)
1954

[American Troops Landing on D-Day, Omaha Beach, Normandy Coast, France], Robert Capa American, born Hungary, Gelatin silver print — [American Troops Landing on D-Day, Omaha Beach, Normandy Coast, France]
Robert Capa (American (born Hungary), Budapest 1913–1954 Thai Binh)
1944

Corner of State and Randolph Streets, Chicago, Walker Evans American, Gelatin silver print — Corner of State and Randolph Streets, Chicago
Walker Evans (American, St. Louis, Missouri 1903–1975 New Haven, Connecticut)
1946

[Blind Veteran Outside Pennsylvania Station, New York], George Gilbert American, Gelatin silver print — [Blind Veteran Outside Pennsylvania Station, New York]
George Gilbert (American, 1922–2012)
1946

Memory of War Defeat, Ruins on Dockyard in Toyokawa, Aichi, Shomei Tomatsu Japanese, Gelatin silver print — Memory of War Defeat, Ruins on Dockyard in Toyokawa, Aichi
Shomei Tomatsu (Japanese, Aichi, Nagoya 1930–2012 Naha, Okinawa)
1959, printed 1990

[Street Scene at Night], Pim Van Os Dutch, Gelatin silver print — [Street Scene at Night]
Pim Van Os (Dutch, 1910–1954)
ca. 1950

R.A.F. Raid on Hamburg, British Air Ministry, Gelatin silver print — R.A.F. Raid on Hamburg
British Air Ministry
1943

[Operation Crossroads: 21 Kiloton "Baker" Bomb Detonated Ninety Feet Underwater, Bikini Atoll Lagoon, South Pacific, July 25, 1946], U.S. Army Photographic Signal Corps, Gelatin silver print — [Operation Crossroads: 21 Kiloton "Baker" Bomb Detonated Ninety Feet Underwater, Bikini Atoll Lagoon, South Pacific, July 25, 1946]
U.S. Army Photographic Signal Corps
1946

[Corpses in the Crematorium Mortuary in the Newly Liberated Dachau Concentration Camp, Dachau, Germany], Unknown, Gelatin silver print — [Corpses in the Crematorium Mortuary in the Newly Liberated Dachau Concentration Camp, Dachau, Germany]
Unknown
April 29–May 10, 1945

Walker Evans (American, 1903–1975). Corner of State and Randolph Streets, Chicago (detail), 1946. Gelatin silver print, 6 1/4 x 5 3/16 in. (15.9 x 13.1 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 1990 (1990.1045). © Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.