Depicting the gritty streets of New York: these artists "consciously broke many of the accepted rules of photography, [yet] shared a common vision and objective: to record their personal responses to the vivid and often violent city surrounding them."

PHOTOGRAPHERS WORKING in New York City in the years between the publication of Walker Evans' American Photographs in 1938 and Robert Frank's The Americans 20 years later profoundly changed the course of American photography. This fertile period in history is celebrated in an exhibition of some 75 images by 20 prominent artists, including key works by Evans and Frank; candid studies of children by Helen Levitt: vibrant and gritty compositions of the streets and street life by Louis Faurer and Ted Croner; evocative and lyrical views of the urban landscape by Roy DeCarava, Saul Leiter, and David Vestal; bold depictions of New York bars and nightclubs by Lisette Model; photographs of joy and alienation at Coney Island by Sid Grossman, Leon Levinstein, and Brace Davidson; and disturbing photographs of New York's latent violence by William Klein and Weegee, among others.

The artists featured were not part of an organized group, although many studied with Alexey Brodovitch, art director of Harper's Bazaar and founder of the Design Laboratory, or Grossman, who taught classes at the Photo League and in his New York apartment. However, this generation of photographers shared a common vision and objective: to record their personal responses to the vivid and often violent city surrounding them.

Encouraged by the teachings of Brodovitch and Grossman, they consciously broke many of the accepted rules of photography--they used available light, for instance, and allowed forms to be blurred, out of focus, and off-kilter--in order to reveal the city's energy and pace, vitality and vulgarity. Unlike their predecessors, their goal was not simply to document the city, but to re-create their experience of it. Organized by photographer, the exhibition highlights the novel techniques favored by these new artists, and their choices of subject matter and composition.

Among the photographs showcased, Evans' subway images, created between 1938-41, are some of the most iconic portraits of the period, and helped usher in a new era in photography. He created the photographs by concealing a 35mm camera under his coat--its lens protruding between his buttons and a shutter release down his sleeve. Relying entirely on chance and intuition, Evans did not raise the camera to his eye to frame the photograph, nor did he adjust the focus or exposure. This stealth allowed him to shoot subway riders without their knowledge, and thus capture them in "naked repose," as Evans noted. The resulting pictures are raw--full of energy and emotion--and marked a dramatic break from the highly composed images that had preceded them.

Levitt studied with Evans in 1938-39. Like him, she used a 35mm camera, but quickly developed her own fluid, graceful style, making tender, often witty photographs of children at play. Instead of the close-up, confrontational style favored by some of her contemporaries, Levitt preferred to frame an entire scene, giving her images a strong narrative appeal.

The individual popularly known as Weegee began his career covering fires that occurred overnight when the regular photographers were off duty. Soon, he was shooting the murders, fires, and accidents of the troubled city. By wiring his room to pick up signals from the police radio dispatcher, Weegee often was one of the first to arrive at scenes of violence and catastrophe, earning him his nickname (alter the Ouija board) for his seemingly uncanny ability to know where disaster was going to strike. In contrast to Evans' and Levitt's images, Weegee's works often are shocking and filled with gritty immediacy.

In the mid 1940s, Faurer moved from his hometown of Philadelphia to New York, where he met and shared a studio with Frank. Not as interested in violence as Weegee, Faurer claimed the "hypnotic dusk light led him to Times Square," where he photographed daily, immersing himself in the culture of postwar America and reveling in the occasionally bizarre aspects of the city.

The Viennese-born Model was another highly influential figure at this time. Soon "after she moved to New York in 1938, she found that her direct and uncompromising photographs perfectly suited the aggressive character of the city. Brodovitch often published her photographs in Harper's Bazaar, but she most strongly exerted her influence on others through the courses she taught at the New School for Social Research in New York. Diane Arbus, whose early work also is included in the exhibition, was one of her most well-known students.

Klein, a native New Yorker, spent the decade after World War II in Paris studying painting with Fernand Leger and taking up photography. He returned to New York to work for Vogue, but also began to experiment with photography on the city streets using a wide-angle lens, extreme close-ups, and harsh printing methods. A recurring theme in his work is children at play with toy guns. These photographs are a startling juxtaposition of innocence and violence, humor and aggression.