Rudy Burckhardt  (American, 1914-1999) 

Rudy Burckhardt (American, 1914–1999) was a photographer, painter, and filmmaker. Born in Basel, Switzerland, Burckhardt traveled to London in the early 1930s, where he began to photograph city life. He captured images of obscure building facades and quiet streets, attempting to depict the true character of London, rather than the overexposed monuments and tourist attractions. In 1935, Burckhardt moved to the United States, where he had homes in both New York and in Searsmont, Maine. Having become a close friend of the writer and art critic Edwin Denby, Burckhardt joined the circles of elite New York artists and intellectuals. While Burckhardt traveled extensively and photographed an array of cities and towns throughout Europe and countries as diverse as Peru, Haiti, and Morocco, he is perhaps best known for his iconic photographs of New York City. His images of pedestrians, advertisements, landmarks, and buildings were featured in a 2009 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Burckhardt’s work has been exhibited in museums and galleries around the world, such as the Kunstmuseum in Basel, Switzerland, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art and the Tibor de Nagy Gallery in New York. He is the subject of a 2003 documentary film, Man in the Woods: The Art of Rudy Burckhardt, directed by Vivien Bittencourt and Vincent Katz.