LARRY SILVER AT THE HOUSOTONIC MUSEUM OF ART

Following in the tradition of street photography, Weegee, W.Eugene Smith and Henri Cartier Bresson, Larry Silver (b. 1934) began documenting moments of everyday life on the streets and subways of New York City in 1949 at the age of 15. While studying photography at the High School of Industrial Art (1949-53), he soon came under the influence of New York’s Photo League, a group of photographers who combined personal expression and social activism to expose the political and social issues of the day. While still in high school, Silver was awarded a scholarship to attend the Art Center School in Los Angeles (1954-56) and soon began photographing the local weightlifters, body builders, and acrobats who flocked to the Santa Monica Beach. This celebrated series, Muscle Beach (1954), was the subject of a solo exhibition at the International Center of Photography in 1985, and again in 1999 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.