Camilo José Vergara

Camilo José Vergara
65 East 125th Street, Harlem
1977
inkjet print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Camilo José Vergara
65 East 125th Street, Harlem
1978
inkjet print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Camilo José Vergara
65 East 125th Street, Harlem
1980
inkjet print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Camilo José Vergara
65 East 125th Street, Harlem
1980
inkjet print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Camilo José Vergara
65 East 125th Street, Harlem
1981
inkjet print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Camilo José Vergara
65 East 125th Street, Harlem
1983
inkjet print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Camilo José Vergara
65 East 125th Street, Harlem
1988
inkjet print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Camilo José Vergara
65 East 125th Street, Harlem
1990
inkjet print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Camilo José Vergara
65 East 125th Street, Harlem
1992
inkjet print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Camilo José Vergara
65 East 125th Street, Harlem
1994
inkjet print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Camilo José Vergara
65 East 125th Street, Harlem
1995
inkjet print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Camilo José Vergara
65 East 125th Street, Harlem
1996
inkjet print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Camilo José Vergara
65 East 125th Street, Harlem
1997
inkjet print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Camilo José Vergara
65 East 125th Street, Harlem
1998
inkjet print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Camilo José Vergara
65 East 125th Street, Harlem
2001
inkjet print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Camilo José Vergara
65 East 125th Street, Harlem
2001
inkjet print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Camilo José Vergara
65 East 125th Street, Harlem
2002
inkjet print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Camilo José Vergara
65 East 125th Street, Harlem
2004
inkjet print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Camilo José Vergara
65 East 125th Street, Harlem
2007
inkjet print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Camilo José Vergara
65 East 125th Street, Harlem
2009
inkjet print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Camilo José Vergara
65 East 125th Street, Harlem
2009
inkjet print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Camilo José Vergara
65 East 125th Street, Harlem
2011
inkjet print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Camilo José Vergara
65 East 125th Street, Harlem
2014
inkjet print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Camilo José Vergara
65 East 125th Street, Harlem
2015
inkjet print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Camilo José Vergara
65 East 125th Street, Harlem
2016
inkjet print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Roma

Again and again I kiss thy gates at departing

And against our will leave thy holy door-stone,

Praying in tears and with praises

            such words as can pierce our tears.

Hear us, Queen, fairest in all the earth, Roma,

Taking post twixt the sky's poles,

Nurse of men! Mother of gods,

                                    do thou hear us.

Ever we hymn thee and will, while the Fates can have power.

No guest can forget thee.

            It were worse crime than forgetting the sun

If we ceased holding thy honor in heart,

Thou impartial as sunlight to the splash of all outer sea-bords. 

All that Apollo over-rides in his quadriga

Hast thou combined into equity:

Many strange folk in one fatherland,

To their good, not seeking to dominate;

Gavest law to the conquered as consorts;

Made city what had been world. 

They say that Venus was thy mother, that is by Aeneas,

Mars for father hadst'ou through Romulus,

Making mild armed strength, she in conquest:

One god in two natures;

                                    Joy out of strife by sparing

O'ercamest the sources of terror

In love with all that remains.

– Rutilius Claudius Namatianus was born in Gaul in the late fourth century AD and held high office at the court of Honorius.  His poem of return from Rome, De Reditu Suo, contains a famous tribute to the city written shortly after its siege and sack by Alaric the Goth in AD 410.  The translation is by Ezra Pound (1963). 

N. Jay Jaffee

N. Jay Jaffee
Hazard (New York)
1949
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

N. Jay Jaffee
Fight for Peace (May Day Parade, New York)
1949
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

N. Jay Jaffee
Woman under Movie Marquee (Times Square)
ca. 1949
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

N. Jay Jaffee
Woman reading Paper under El
1950
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

N. Jay Jaffee
Woman with Broom
ca. 1950
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

N. Jay Jaffee
Girl on Skates (Brooklyn)
1950
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

N. Jay Jaffee
Oriole Baths (Long Island)
1950
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

N. Jay Jaffee
Pillars in Sunlight (Brooklyn)
1951
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

N. Jay Jaffee
Two Men in Subway
1952
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

N. Jay Jaffee
Bryant Park
1953
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

N. Jay Jaffee
Looking at Sand Sculpture (Coney Island)
1956
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

N. Jay Jaffee
Man and Woman with Shadows (Brighton Beach)
1974
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

N. Jay Jaffee
Two Men
1977
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum,
Washington DC

N. Jay Jaffee
Self Portrait
1979
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

N. Jay Jaffee
Building Repair (Paris)
1979
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum,
Washington DC

N. Jay Jaffee
At the Minster (York, England)
1982
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

N. Jay Jaffee
Sculpture with White Paint
1989
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

N. Jay Jaffee
Group Picture (Los Angeles)
1989
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

N. Jay Jaffee
Clouds and Seascape (Lloyd Harbor, New York)
1990
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

from Troas

For love Appollo (his Godhead set aside)

Was servant to the king of Thessaley,

Whose daughter was so pleasant in his eye,

That bothe his harpe and sawtrey he defide,

And bagpipe solace of the rurall bride,

Did puffe and blowe and on the holtes hy,

His cattell kept with that rude melody. 

And oft eke him that doth the heavens gyde

Hath love transformed to shapes for him too base.

Transmuted thus sometime a swan is he,

Leda taccoye, and of Europe to please,

A milde white bull, unwrinckled front and face,

Suffreth her play tyll on his back lepeth she,

Whom in great care he ferieth through the seas. 

– Seneca (4 BC-AD 65), translated by Anonymous (1557)

Weegee

Weegee
Max the Bagel Man
1940
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Weegee
Crowd at Coney Island
1940
gelatin silver print
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh

Weegee
The Human Cannonball
ca. 1940
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Weegee
Untitled
ca. 1940
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Weegee
Couple Kissing in a Bar
ca. 1940
gelatin silver print
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh

Weegee
Not a Sunday Driver
1942
gelatin silver print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Weegee
Rehearsal, Yiddish Theater
1943
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Weegee
Simply Add Boiling Water
1943
gelatin silver print
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri

Weegee
An Incident in the Snowstorm
1944
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Weegee
Billie Dauscha and Mabel Sidney,
Bowery Entertainers
ca. 1944
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Weegee
Frank Sinatra
ca. 1944
gelatin silver print
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Weegee
Celebration at End of War
1945
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Weegee
Self Portrait
ca. 1950
gelatin silver print
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Weegee
Queen Ball, San Francisco
ca. 1952
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Weegee
Leslie Caron
ca. 1955
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Weegee
Self Portrait
ca. 1955
gelatin silver print
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Weegee
Concert, Greenwich Village
ca. 1956
gelatin silver print
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh

from Aetna

For when the rushing Winds begin to blow

And threat an angry Deluge far below,

A rocking Earthquake shakes the solid Ground,

And sullen Groans, and Murmurs dire resound,

And Flakes of livid Flames burst forth around:

Then to some distant Hill's securer Height,

With utmost Speed precipitate your Flight,

For hissing Streams o'erflow the ruin'd Coast,

And Fragments of the Rock aloft are tost,

And Loads of Sand are wildly whirl'd on high, 

With hideous Roar, and blacken all the Sky.

These horrid Inmates thus dismist, the Hill

Relents, and its convulsive Pangs are still.

    The Tempest past, huge Heaps are seen around

Of mingled Ruins, that o'erspread the Ground;

Like slaughter'd Soldiers, prostrate on the Plain,

Before the Ramparts they assail'd in vain.

    The stones, thus burnt, in a coarse Scurf expire,

Like the base Dregs of Metals purg'd by Fire;

And the dire Deluge of the mingled Mass

Of molten Flints, shot thro' the narrow Pass,

(For in the Mountain's Womb the raging Flame

Dissolves them, as the Forge's heated Frame)

In copious Streams do's from the Summit flow,

And rapid rolling ruin all below;

Twelve Miles in Length extends their wasteful Course,

Nor rising Mounds retard their fatal Force;

If Forests, or high Hills oppose, with Scorn

The Hills they master, and the Forests burn,

Sweep all before them with resistless Sway,

And th' unctuous Soil recruits them in the Way. 

– Anonymous(before 63 AD), translated by Jabez Hughes (before 1731)