From 22nd St., Back Window
1958
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
overall: 34.29 × 22.86 cm (13 1/2 × 9 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Jack and Judy Stern
Accession Number
2018.141.10
Art Historical Context
"From 22nd St., Back Window" (1958) is a gelatin silver print by American photographer David Vestal, an intimate glimpse of urban life from a rear apartment window on New York's 22nd Street Measuring 13½ × 9 inches, this modest-sized image invites viewers into a private vantage point, likely revealing the everyday rhythms of city neighborhoods in post-World War II America—a time rapid urbanization and shifting social landscapes. Vestal's exemplifies the straight photography tradition of the mid-20th century, emphasizing unmanipulated realism and tonal depth. The gelatin silver print medium, a...
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 ...