A passionate gospel choir, a trio of Albino musicians, a group of young girls parading to church in their First Communion dresses.
These are just three of the variety of characters captured by American photographer Arlene Gottfried as she wandered through New York City with her camera for decades.
Now 50 of Gottfried’s photos, some of which have never been seen before by the public, are on display at the Daniel Cooney Fine Art gallery in Manhattan.
Fifty photos from the collection of late American photographer Arlene Gottfried are now on display at Daniel Cooney Fine Art gallery in Manhattan
The collection includes one of her most famous photos, a group of girls in their Communion dresses being led to church
Also in the collection is this photo Gottfried captured of a group of Albino men singing in a band together in the 1980s
The collection, titled A Lifetime of Wandering, was curated from 15,000 photographs dated from the 1960s up to the 1980s Pictured is ‘Guy with Radio’, 1970
Gottfried (pictured in a self-portrait), who is the sister of comedian Gilbert Gottfried, had planned to create a retrospective exhibition with Cooney
The collection, titled ‘A Lifetime of Wandering’, was curated from 15,000 photographs dated from the 1960s up to the 1980s.
Gottfried, who is the sister of comedian Gilbert Gottfried, had planned to create a retrospective exhibition with Cooney.
But she never got the chance, passing away from breast cancer complications at the age of 66 in August 2017.
But Gottfried never got the chance to curate her retrospective, passing away from breast cancer complications at the age of 66 in August 2017. Pictured is ‘Women on Riis Beach’, 1980
The responsibility fell onto Cooney, who spent countless hours inside a storage facility filled with Gottfried’s work. Pictured ‘Angel and Woman on Boardwalk in Brighton Beach’, 1976
Included is a photo of the former convict and club dancer Midnight, who Gottfried followed as he declined into mental illness
Nothing was out of bounds for Gottfried, who traveled to Rikers Island to photograph the jail’s Olympic games in 1987
Cooney revealed that he decided to focus on images of Gottfried’s that highlighted her innate sense of ‘humanness’
Cooney said Gottfried was ‘never sarcastic’ or ‘making fun’ of the variety of people that she focused on with her lens (Pictured is Coney Island, 1976)
Thus the responsibility fell onto Cooney, who spent countless hours inside a storage facility filled with Gottfried’s work.
‘I’d close my eyes and I’d think, “Come on, Arlene, I need you now”‘, Cooney told Feature Shoot.
Cooney decided to focus on images that highlighted Gottfried’s innate sense of ‘humanness’ – favoring photos that featured eye contact or tenderness.
‘That’s what Arlene was about as a person,’ Cooney said. ‘She wanted to connect to people.’
Cooney selected pictures from Gottfried that featured eye contact or tenderness, whether by the subject matter or the photographer herself
Gottfried took her first photographs at the legendary Woodstock festival in 1969, with a camera given to her by her father. She would later take a picture of the legendary Rick James (pictured) in 1981
But it wasn’t the stars Gottfried was drawn to, even when her brother became a famous comedian. She was always trying to capture the everyday lives of New Yorkers, like these boys arguing at Coney Island in the 1970s
She ventured into the the men’s bathroom at the disco to capture this performer swallow fire in the heyday of the 1970s
Gottfried also went to numerous local establishments, capturing New Yorkers as they enjoyed a cigarette or a drink at the bar (both pictured circa 1980)
‘She was never sarcastic. She’s not making fun of these people. She’s enjoying them. She enjoyed her life,’ he added.
Gottfried took her first photographs at the legendary Woodstock festival in 1969, with a camera that was a gift from her father.
But the budding photographer didn’t need a music festival to find captivating subjects. She quickly showed a knack for capturing surprising moments, even in the setting of her own home in Crown Heights.
Gottfried began by taking pictures of her family and, at the age of 18, became the only female photography student in her class at FIT.
Sometimes Gottfried turned the lens on her own family. Pictured is her mother in her kitchen in Boro Park in 1974
She ventured into people’s private homes to capture them in their own spaces, in various states of poses and comfort (pictured left is Karen With Hat, 1985, and Bubble on Bed, 1972)
Gottfried loved documenting New York, capturing everything from the playful environment of Coney Island to the Puerto Rican neighborhoods that dominated the Lower East Side in the 1970s and 1980s (Man in Central Park, late 1970s)
Gottfried became a gospel singer late in her life, so it was no surprise that she often captured the performances she loved (Gospel Singers, 1990s)
She focused her lens onto the wild streets of New York, documenting everything from the playful environment of Coney Island to the Puerto Rican neighborhoods that dominated the Lower East Side in the 1970s and 1980s.
It was there that she captured one of her most famous pictures, a parade of young girls in white dresses, walking to their First Communion as a Western film played on a television screen atop a nearby car.
Gottfried eventually became a professional photojournalist, her pictures appearing in the likes of New York Times Magazine, Life, and The Independent in London.
And it was through her work that the world was given a peek into the everything from the clubs to the beaches to the streets of the city that never sleeps.
Gottfried eventually became a professional photojournalist, her work appearing in the likes of New York Times Magazine, Life, and The Independent in London (Couple, circa 1980)
And it was through her work that the world was given a peek into the everything from the clubs to the beaches to the streets of the city that never sleeps (Purim, circa 1970)