February 21, 2026 to May 17, 2026
Lewis Hine Pictures America
Explore the work of Lewis Wickes Hine — the “father of documentary photography” — whose artistic photos exposed the harsh realities faced by immigrants, children, and the working class in their everyday lives during the early decades of the twentieth century.
Comprising over 70 rare vintage photographs from the private collection of Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg, this exhibition includes some of Hine’s most famous images of newly arrived immigrants at Ellis Island, children at work, the steel industry in Pittsburgh, and the construction of the Empire State Building.
A trained sociologist and educator, Hine taught at New York’s Ethical Culture School, a proponent of progressive education. In 1905, Hine took his students to Ellis Island, putting a human face on the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” In 1907, Hine joined the Pittsburgh Survey, a socioeconomic analysis of the city. His photographs, combined with reports from seventy investigators, exposed the harsh living and working conditions in the modern industrial city and became an important tool to raise public awareness and influence social reform.
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