Empire State Building, New York
1960
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
image/sheet: 22.86 × 34.45 cm (9 × 13 9/16 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Diana and Mallory Walker Fund
Accession Number
2006.79.1
Art Historical Context
In 1960, American photographer David Vestal captured majestic silhouette of the Empire State Building in this gelatin silver print, a medium celebrated for its crisp detail, rich tonal range, and archival longevity. Measuring nearly 23 x 34 cm, the image exemplifies mid-20th-century black-and-white photography, where silver halides embedded in gelatin emulsion produced prints with exceptional clarity and depth—ideal for documenting urban icons like this Art Deco masterpiece, completed in 1931 amid the Great Depression's economic optimism. Vestal, known for his precise, unmanipulated "straight...
About the Artist
David Vestal
David Vestal was an American photographer whose career unfolded largely in the second half of the twentieth century, a period when photography was asserting its place as a serious fine art medium. Trained initially as a painter, he turned to photography in the late 1940s and studied under the legendary Sid Grossman at the Photo League in New York — an institution committed to documentary humanism ...