Robert Mann Gallery is excited to announce the first online exhibition of 2021, David Vestal: On the Quiet Streets of New York, a collection of photographs by David Vestal. This array of photographs, depicting scenes of New York from the 1940s to the 1960s, illustrates Vestal’s ability to harness the juxtaposition of the intensity of the pounding city and the loneliness of the quiet streets. These black and white images, abound with atmospheric light and dramatic composition, draw the viewer into Vestal’s poetic film noir-inspired New York.  

David Vestal was born in Menlo Park, California in 1924. On the Quiet Streets of New York is his fourth solo exhibition with Robert Mann Gallery. He made a great splash in the Photo League, where he was a member and befriended Sid Grossman, developing the distinguishing approach of favoring single images to photographic essays. Vestal was also a figure of the New York School, a radical and politically charged artistic movement following WWII that created a new form of documentary street photography.

 In addition to his photographs, he was a respected critic, educator, and the author of influential books on the craft of photography and black and white printing. He was the recipient of John Simon Guggenheim Fellowships in 1966 and 1973. Throughout his career, Vestal taught at Parsons School of Design, the School of Visual Arts, and at Pratt Institute. Vestal died in 2013, in Bethlehem, Connecticut. His photographs are included in significant public collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, among many others.

The show will be on view online from January 9 - February 13, 2021. For additional information and press materials, contact the gallery by email (mail@robertmann.com).