Evelyn Hofer: Eyes on the City

How Hofer used the photobook form to chronicle American and European cities in an era of postwar transformation

Evelyn Hofer was a highly innovative photographer whose prolific career spanned five decades. Despite her extraordinary output, she was underrecognized during her lifetime and was notably referred to by New York Times art critic Hilton Kramer as “the most famous unknown photographer in America.” She made her greatest impact through a series of photobooks, published throughout the 1960s, devoted to European and American cities, including Florence, London, New York, Washington and Dublin, and a book focused on the country of Spain.

Comprising more than 100 photographs in both black and white and color, Eyes on the City accompanies the artist’s first major museum exhibition in the United States in over 50 years and is organized around her photobooks. The photographs feature landscapes and architectural views combined with portraiture, conveying the unique character and personality of these urban capitals during a period of intense structural, social and economic transformations after World War II.

Evelyn Hofer (1922–2009) was born in Germany and moved to New York in 1946. She was an early adopter of color photography and published assignments for many major magazines including Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. Hofer collaborated with authors such as Mary McCarthy and V.S. Pritchett on several books, including The Stones of Florence (1959), London Perceived (1962) and Dublin: A Portrait (1967). She died in Mexico City.