By Jennifer Glickel
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
CHELSEA — A new exhibit at a Chelsea gallery looks at the Manhattan of the 1940s, '50s, and '60s as seen through the lens of David Vestal — a significant but often overlooked New York photographer.
"David Vestal: Once Upon a Time in New York," which opened at the Robert Mann gallery on Thursday, reveals the artist's romanticized vision of New York's mid-20th-century urban landscape.
Vestal's black-and-white images of Manhattan street scenes, particularly of 42nd Street's Theater Row, aligned him with the New York School of photography, whose artists captured the excitement, turbulence, and humanity of the city as it evolved from the economic crisis of the Great Depression through the social unrest of the late '60s.
Vestal was a contemporary of the photographers Robert Frank and Aaron Siskind, but unlike most New York School photographers, Vestal did not shoot photo essays. Each of his images was aesthetically powerful enough to stand as an individual work, gallery organizers said.
"He shot New York in a way that each image is a stand alone image and he was pretty much just documenting his home," said Mike Plunkett of the Robert Mann gallery.
"He wasn't necessarily creating a body of work or a series," Plunkett added. "He was just a man with a camera."
Many of the 24 images featured in the show were shot at night, giving the collection an ethereal quality.
"There's a lot of nighttime photographs where the shutter speed isn't slow enough to get a completely crisp image, so it gives the photos a really romantic feel," Plunkett said.
"David Vestal: Once Upon a Time in New York" opened at the Robert Mann gallery on Thursday and runs through Dec. 4. The gallery is located at 210 Eleventh Ave. between W. 24th and W. 25th streets.
