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| Aaron Siskind Pleasures and Terrors of Levitation 1953 gelatin silver print Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri |
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| Aaron Siskind Pleasures and Terrors of Levitation 1953 gelatin silver print Princeton University Art Museum |
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| Aaron Siskind Pleasures and Terrors of Levitation 1956 gelatin silver print Phillips Collection, Washington DC |
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| Ed van der Elsken Ballet Students #1 ca. 1955 gelatin silver print Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Ed van der Elsken Ballet Students #2 ca. 1955 gelatin silver print Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Ed van der Elsken Ballet Students #3 ca. 1955 gelatin silver print Art Institute of Chicago |
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| William Klein Wings of the Hawk 1955 gelatin silver print Yale University Art Gallery |
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| William Klein Woman and Cigarette Holder, Waldorf Astoria, New York 1955 gelatin silver print Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia |
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| Harold Edgerton Diver 1955 dye transfer print Princeton University Art Museum |
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| Robert Frank New Orleans, Canal Street 1955 gelatin silver print Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio |
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| Robert Frank Detroit 1955 gelatin silver print Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri |
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| Robert Frank Star, Hollywood 1956 gelatin silver print Minneapolis Institute of Art |
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| Inge Morath Gloria Vanderbilt 1956 gelatin silver print Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio |
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| Henri Cartier-Bresson Nancy Cunard 1956 bromide print National Portrait Gallery, London |
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| Dave Heath Carl Dean Kipper, Korea ca. 1953-54 gelatin silver print Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri |
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| Dave Heath New York City ca. 1957 gelatin silver print Minneapolis Institute of Art |
90 North
At home, in my flannel gown, like a bear to its floe,
I clambered to bed; up the globe's impossible sides
I sailed all night – till at last, with my black beard,
My furs and my dogs, I stood at the northern pole.
There in the childish night my companions lay frozen,
The stiff furs knocked at my starveling throat,
And I gave a great sigh: the flakes came huddling,
Were they really my end? In the darkness I turned to my rest.
– Here, the flag snaps in the glare and silence
Of the unbroken ice. I stand here,
The dogs bark, my beard is black, and I stare
At the North Pole . . .
And now what? Why, go back.
Turn as I please, my step is to the south.
The world – my world spins on this final point
Of cold and wretchedness: all lines, all winds
End in this whirlpool I at last discover.
And it is meaningless. In the child's bed
After the night's voyage, in that warm world
Where people work and suffer for the end
That crowns the pain – in that Cloud-Cuckoo-Land
I reached my North and it had meaning.
Here at the actual pole of my existence,
Where all that I have done is meaningless,
Where I die or live by accident alone –
Where, living or dying, I am still alone;
Here where North, the night, the berg of death
Crowd me out of the ignorant darkness,
I see at last that all the knowledge
I wrung from the darkness – that the darkness flung me –
Is worthless as ignorance: nothing comes from nothing,
The darkness from the darkness. Pain comes from the darkness
And we call it wisdom. It is pain.
– Randall Jarrell (1945)
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| Anonymous Photographer (USA) Atomic Bomb Exploding, Bikini Atoll 1954 C-print Minneapolis Institute of Art |