Roman Vishniac: Rediscovered

An exhibition collaboration between The Photographers’ Gallery and Jewish Museum, London.

More than any other photographer, Roman Vishniac’s images have profoundly influenced contemporary notions of Jewish life in eastern Europe. Vishniac created the most widely recognized and reproduced photographic record of that world on the eve of its annihilation, yet only a small fraction of his work was published or printed during his lifetime. Although known primarily for this poignant record, Vishniac was in fact a remarkably versatile and innovative photographer. His body of work spans more than five decades, ranging from early engagements with European modernism in the 1920s to highly inventive color photomicroscopy in the 1950s and ’60s.

Curated by Maya Benton across the two London venues, Roman Vishniac Rediscovered offers a comprehensive reappraisal of Vishniac’s total photographic output, from his early years in Berlin through the postwar period in America. The exhibition is drawn from the Roman Vishniac archive at International Centre of Photography, New York, and includes recently discovered vintage prints, rare moving film footage, contact sheets, personal correspondence, and newly created exhibition prints. It introduces a radically diverse body of work—much of it only recently discovered—to UK audiences and aims to reposition Vishniac’s iconic photographs of eastern European Jewry within a broader tradition of 1930s social documentary photography.