Cushman in Color

Cushman shot New York in color during the 1940s, which is wild because most photographs from that era are black and white. His work doesn’t have that faded, nostalgic feeling—the colors are just there, immediate and clear. He wasn’t making art, just documenting the city. Corner storefronts, people in their coats, light hitting a building facade. No self-consciousness in it, no attempt to prove anything. Just recording what he saw, and now we get to look at it exactly as it appeared to him.