A remarkable collection of front-page news photography from the 20th century is on display at the Howard Greenberg Gallery from September 12 to November 16, 2024. The exhibition, Extra! Extra! News Photographs from 1903-1975 showcases unforgettable moments from significant historical events, ranging from the introduction of the first Ford car and suffragist protests for voting rights, to the dropping of the atomic bomb, highlights from the world of baseball, key moments from the Civil Rights Movement, political assassinations, Woodstock, and the Vietnam War. Collectively, these images create a vivid visual history of the United States over the past century.
Most of the photos featured are some of the earliest known printed versions, with each print containing meticulously recorded provenance, detailing its journey from the newsroom to the printed page. These records offer valuable insights into the print’s publication history, ownership, and any historical moments it has been linked to. The exhibition will also highlight these notations on the backs of the photographs, further deepening the context surrounding each piece.
Extra! Extra! News Photographs from 1903-1975 includes over 60 images, drawn from a larger collection of nearly 250 prints assembled by Dan Solomon and Howard Greenberg. Among these are works by famous photographers like Robert Capa and W. Eugene Smith, although many of the photographers remain unknown. The exhibition captures prominent figures of the 20th century such as Muhammad Ali, Neil Armstrong, The Beatles, Amelia Earhart, Martin Luther King Jr., Patricia Hearst, Jackie Robinson, Babe Ruth, and the Wright Brothers.
Solomon began curating the collection over two decades ago, sourcing images from media outlets like The New York Times, Time-Life, The San Francisco Examiner, and The Cleveland Plain Dealer, as they digitized their archives. His passion for collecting was sparked by Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Malcolm Browne’s iconic 1963 image of a Buddhist monk self-immolating in Saigon. Turning the print over, Solomon was struck by the stamps and annotations on the back, which conveyed the photograph’s historical significance. “The print carried a weight, an aura, connecting it to history and the spread of information,” Solomon recalled. “I immediately wanted to see more.”

“This collection stands out due to its inclusion of many rare and historically significant prints,” said Howard Greenberg. “We were fortunate to acquire these first and second-generation press prints just as archives began selling off their photographic files.”

Far from being pristine, each photograph in the exhibition bears marks of use—crop lines, grease pencil marks, date stamps showing when the photo was published, captions used by the newspapers, credit information, and editorial notes. These visual cues serve as a testament to the photojournalistic process. One example is the 1968 photograph by Eddie Adams of the Associated Press, capturing the execution of a Viet Cong prisoner by a South Vietnamese officer. The back of the print contains various notations, including a newspaper clipping questioning whether such violent imagery should be broadcast on television.
Many of the photographs included in Extra! Extra! News Photographs from 1903-1975 were previously featured in Pictures of the Times: A Century of Photography from The New York Times, an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 1996. This earlier show was based on a gift of news photographs from The New York Times to MoMA. In the exhibition catalogue, New York Times writer William Safire reflected, “Photojournalism captures unfolding drama and halts it in time, refusing to let fleeting moments slip away. It freezes history at a pivotal instant and allows us to examine it.

Extra! Extra! News Photographs 1903-1975
September 12 – November 16, 2024
Howard Greenberg Gallery – New York

More info:

https://www.howardgreenberg.com/