Take the plunge! A deep dive into New York and other great American cities – in pictures

The Dulwich Picture Gallery is currently hosting a major exhibition titled Portrait of a City: A Century of American Photography. The show features more than 100 works from renowned photographers including Peter Hujar, Garry Winogrand, Edward Steichen, and Saul Leiter. These images document the rapid expansion of American urban centers during the 20th century and show how the camera became a primary tool for recording changing social conditions.

The exhibition covers several decades of transformation. You can see early works such as Lewis Hine’s 1930 photograph of an ironworker on the Empire State Building alongside later documentary projects like Mary Ellen Mark’s 1987 series on families living in their cars in Los Angeles. The collection provides a look at both iconic architecture and the quiet, everyday moments that defined city life.

Curators have organized the works to highlight how photography shifted our collective understanding of urban environments. From Arthur Leipzig’s 1948 shots of divers in the East River to Peter Hujar’s portraits of queer communities in the 1980s, the pieces show a nation in motion. These photographs capture the intersection of architecture, public space, and the private lives of people living in high-density areas.

The exhibition is on display in London until 4 October. It serves as a visual record of postwar expansion, environmental shifts, and community endurance. By bringing these images together, the gallery offers a specific view of the American experience through the eyes of artists who focused on the details of street life and urban structure.