Gitterman: Roger Mayne

Street photography is not my thing. I just don't have a knack for it; perhaps I'm too shy. I do like to look at, however. Roger Mayne, a legend of the form, is currently showing at Gitterman Gallery in Midtown. The show focuses on his Southam Street work, created in the late 50s when he was in his late 20s. His images show what comes from an intimate knowledge of a subject. Contrast that with the road trip works generated by the 30s WPA photographers, or Garry Winnogand or Walker Evans.

The Victoria & Albert Museum has a selection of his photos online coupled with exerpts from an interview with Mayne. "My intention is to be a fine artist, but I think that it is the nature of the medium of photography that one has to start with what photography does, which is to take records of things. So I think you take a record and if, for various reasons, everything comes together, then the record will raise itself to a work of art." Some of his non-street photography is displayed there, showing he experimented beyond the single iconic project that he is best known for.

Through June 6 at Gitterman Gallery
170 E. 57th St.
212-734-0868