Untitled, Subway, New York
Bruce Davidson
American, born 1933
1980
A dye-transfer color photograph that records two members of the Guardian Angels in a New York subway, made to document and humanize the grassroots acts of vigilance and identity that shaped city life in the late 20th century.
The image hits you with saturated orange doors and the graphic repetition of ‘Guardian Angels’ on both shirts as two muscular figures fill the door openings beneath a worn sign reading “Please keep hands off the door,” producing a tense, confrontational tableau.
Part of Davidson’s Subway series, this work helped legitimize intimate color documentary photography as a way to reveal how ordinary New Yorkers organized, claimed public space, and staged identity amid the city’s crises.
Medium
Dye transfer print, printed 2006
Dimensions
14 11/16 × 22 1/4" (37.3 × 56.5 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of Susan Steinhauser and Dan Greenberg
Accession
1355.2016.41
Palette
Exhibitions
