Rudy Burckhardt

Untitled photographs from an untitled album with a sonnet by Edwin Denby

1946-47

Gelatin silver prints

On view MoMA, Floor 4, 402 The David Geffen Galleries

Burckhardt and poet Edwin Denby collaborated on several photographic albums in which Burckhardt’s photographs of New York City are accompanied by Denby’s poetry. In the unique, unpublished album from which these pages are drawn, Burckhardt pairs studies of architecture—geometric shapes formed by light and shadow—with photographs of people made around the city. Denby’s accompanying sonnet, pasted into the album and reproduced here, similarly focuses on the atmosphere and experience of New York. The resulting poetic and visual dialogue provides a sense of the rhythm and texture of mid-century urban life.

Gallery label from

2025

Medium Gelatin silver prints
Dimensions 10 1/4 × 10 5/16" (26 × 26.2 cm)
Credit Gift of CameraWorks, Inc. and Purchase
Object number 51.1993.11
Department Photography

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