Los Angeles has a new reason to look at photography with fresh eyes. The Getty has announced a major acquisition of photographs by Josef Breitenbach (1896-1984), the German-born innovator whose experimental work helped shape 20th-century photography, expanding his presence in the city where daring art thrives.
Breitenbach was a master of reinvention: a refugee who fled Nazi-occupied France, he rebuilt his life in New York and became known for solarizations, photograms, and surreal photocollages that turned personal upheaval into striking images. His 1942 photocollage “We New Yorkers,” made soon after his arrival in America, floats a human circulatory system above the glowing windows of Rockefeller Center, a haunting meditation on belonging.
The acquisition deepens the Getty’s holdings of one of photography’s great experimenters and brings more of his bold vision to Los Angeles audiences. It is a celebration of resilience, imagination, and the power of art to make sense of a strange new world.
A luminous addition to L.A.’s cultural landscape.
Photo: The Getty. “We New Yorkers,” 1942, Josef Breitenbach. Gelatin silver print. Getty Museum, Gift of Peter C. Jones. © Josef and Yaye Breitenbach Charitable Foundation.
