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The Story in Pictures: Social Documents from the Permanent Collection

May 31st - August 25th, 2013

  • Introduction

    "If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn’t need to lug around a camera." --Lewis Hine

    • About
    • Selected Works

“If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn’t need to lug around a camera.”
–Lewis Hine

Hine’s oft-quoted and punchy one-liner underscores a central belief in the history of photography: only a photograph is capable of telling a certain kind of story. When words fail, photographers have shouldered the burden of both heavy equipment and the role of social historian in pursuit of these visual narratives, which can range from bleak to humorous tales of moral or economic circumstances. NOMA has long had a deep collection of early social documentary work but recently the Museum acquired four significant groups of photographs by later photographers: Milton Rogovin, Leon Levinstein, Frank Paulin, and Debbie Fleming Caffery. Each of these photographers, although stylistically very different, picked up the camera in search of artful documents of daily life. Their photographs, alternately uplifting and touching or deeply serious, are presented here alongside select works by the earlier photographers that inspired them.

Lower West Side, Buffalo

Circa 1980

Milton Rogovin

Photography

St. Patrick’s Day

Circa 1962

Leon Levinstein

Photography

Man with Cigar

1952

Frank Paulin

Photography

Harry

1985

Debbie Fleming Caffery

Photography

One of the Homeless Wandering Boys

1933

Dorothea Lange

Photography

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The New Orleans Museum of Art inspires lifelong learning with a wide-ranging art collection, world-class exhibitions, and innovative programming. NOMA serves as a forum for engaging with new ideas and sharing a diversity of perspectives, cultural experiences, and ways of thinking.

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New Orleans Museum of Art
One Collins C. Diboll Circle, City Park
New Orleans, LA 70124

504.658.4100

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