1905 Building

The Tumultuous Fifties: A View from the New York Times Photo Archives was a collaboration between the Albright-Knox and the New York Times Photo Archives. Conceived as an exhibition of about 200 vintage photographic prints, its focus was the 1950s, a decade distinguished by significant transformations in the cultural landscape, from McCarthyism, space travel, civil rights, and Cold War politics to post-Bebop, Abstract Expressionism, and Beat poetry. While partial to news photographs that are visually compelling in their own right, the project curators, Douglas Dreishpoon, Curator at Albright-Knox, and Alan Trachtenberg, Professor of English and American Studies at Yale University, selected images that bring symbolic weight to their subject. The exhibition brought together noteworthy photographs from the Times archive that alter our preconceptions of this postwar period, investigating the dynamics that defined the field of photojournalism during the decade.

The project was documented by a 272-page catalogue, co-produced and distributed by Yale University Press, with approximately 200 illustrations, an introduction by Luc Sante (reprinted from the New York Times Magazine); essays by Dreishpoon and Trachtenberg, and a synoptic chronology highlighting developments during the 1950s at the Times and worldwide. The exhibition premiered at the Albright-Knox before traveling to nine other venues throughout the United States, accompanied by the fully illustrated catalogue.

Many public programs were conducted in conjunction with The Tumultuous Fifties. On January 27, a panel entitled “Picturing the Fifties: A Roundtable Discussion” featured Bruce Jackson, Alan Trachtenberg, and Nancy Weinstock. Moderated by Curator Douglas Dreishpoon, this panel focused on the New York Times Photo Archives, the cultural significance of the 1950s, and how that decade was represented photographically.

Other programs included a poetry reading by Robert Creely, a concert entitled “Ella, Ethel, and Elvis: The Songs of the Tumultuous Fifties,” an interactive space for families, and a “Dinner and a Movie: Screening the 1950s” film series.

This exhibition was organized by Curator Douglas Dreishpoon in cooperation with The New York Times Photo Archives and Times History Productions, a division of The New York Times.