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- NY Tennis Club, 1950s
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- Two sailors in the North End of Boston,
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- Gas Station Cowboy, Arizona, 1952
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- Street Corner, Manhattan From Above, 1938
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- Stickball in the Bowery, 1938
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- Catholic Mission Bowery, 1940
For more information contact Scott Berube – berubescott1@gmail.com
WALFRED MOISIO (1910-2002) NYC (1928-1952)
Walfred Moisio (1910 – 2002). For over three decades, Moisio dedicated his life to observing the ever-changing streets of New York City, candidly capturing the emotions of its people and time.
Born in 1910, Moisio grew up on a Massachusetts apple farm and from 1928-32 he put himself through Columbia University earning a fine arts degree in photography, in 1933 he moved to New York City to join the Emergency Relief Bureau in a position as photography instructor and later working for the likes of The New Yorker, Esquire, Time, Look, Harpers Bazaar, Vogue, and the New York Times.
Capturing a time of elegantly turned-out Wall Street businessmen and a magnificent burgeoning stone and steel skyline, contrasted by the impact of the great depression.
While contemporaries such as Alfred Stieglitz and Walker Evans influenced his work, what makes Moisio stand apart is both the quality of his observations and the fact that his work has scarcely ever been seen, until now.
Moisio’s street photography artfully captures many of the cultural and historical events of the 1930s and 40s, while presenting us with a wholly original point of view of New York.
Moisio’s ability to depict the essence of time and place within his honest and documentary style of photography is captivating. In this way he explored the social issues of the time. However, whilst you see casual traces of racial integration, sexuality and economic status, you do not feel he is politicising his photographs.
What you feel in looking at his New York is an optimism of spirit and gesture that feels both timelessly enduring and long ago lost in the City we experience today.
For nearly a half-century, the photographs of Moisio had been in storage in the basement of his home in Massachusetts. The public has until now has seen only a handful of these images that focus on scenes of a long ago forgotten New York and the culture of that time.
In 2018 a collection of 700 color slides surfaced documenting one of the earliest cross country road trips over route 66 to California from NYC recorded by a professional photographer. Mr. Moisios archive consists of several thousand negatives and photographs waiting to be seen and enjoyed