American Urban Life and the Influential Photographers Who Captured It

The Dulwich Picture Gallery in London has opened its doors to a new exhibition titled Portrait of a City: A Century of American Photography. This collection tracks the growth of American urban centers from the early 1900s through the 1980s. It features work from photographers who stood at the center of American cultural and economic shifts during the twentieth century.

Visitors will find works by Diane Arbus, Lewis Hine, Alfred Stieglitz, and many others. The exhibition draws from the DNB Savings Bank Foundation collection to show how cities changed through mass immigration, industrial growth, and economic hardship. The narrative begins at the turn of the century and moves through the post-1929 market crash, highlighting how cameras documented poverty and migration during that period.

The later sections of the gallery focus on the mid-century physical expansion of cities and the political transformation of the 1960s and 1970s. It concludes with Bruce Davidson’s Subway series, which ran from 1980 to 1985. These images offer a look at the diversity and reality of New York City during that era. The project remains open to the public until October 4, 2026, and was produced in collaboration with the Lillehammer Art Museum.