Helene Roth

When the National Socialists came to power, New York became a major city of arrival and a new base for German-speaking photographers. At this time, photography was undergoing a radical transformation as it sought to establish itself as an art form. The émigrés, in turn, brought with them a broad spectrum of professional training and photographic skills. The camera served as a medium for engaging with the metropolis, reflecting on the experience of migration, building networks and simply surviving economically. In order to comprehensively analyse the complex relationships between photography and exile in the context of the metropolis of New York, Helene Roth takes a closer look at the creative achievements and heterogeneous perspectives, but also the setbacks of émigré photographers. From a transnational perspective, she engages with the socio-cultural, political and artistic developments of the 1930s and 1940s. The German edition of ‘Urban Eyes’ (Wallstein Verlag, 2024) was awarded the Gold Medal in the category ‘Photography Theory Textbook’ by the jury of the German Photo Book Award 2025/2026. The dissertation on which this monograph is based received the Claus-Dieter Krohn Prize (2024).

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