Jane Livingston's piece The New York School Photographs 1936-1963, describes the rise of the group of sixteen individuals that made up the New York School. These photographers created this school based on the style of breaking the photographic rules, but with disregard to the fact that they were breaking them, or that these rules even existed. Many of the photographs that came to be from this group had the feeling of photojournalism, but could not exactly be categorized as such. There was a fleetingness in the work, a sense of disregard to the fine details and perfection of cropping. It transcended both commercial and journalistic styles of photography, and perhaps the best way to categorize it would be to say that it took the complete opposite standpoint of the f64 club on the west coast. Large format cameras were replaced with 35mm hand helds, super fine film grain was replaced with experimental forms of 35mm, a formal control over lighting was replaced with an almost carelessness of lens flare and blowouts. It was artistic rebellion at its finest.
In New York in the 1930s, art, commerce, and politics began to intermingle. Artists began to believe that their art might be able to be used for some purpose other than for their own enjoyment, and started to create art for social means. Photography was especially apparent in this "social welfare" movement, as it could show real people in real situations in real life that others may never see or experience in their lives. Taxes began to subsidize the arts, and while many were okay with this distribution of funding, battles against this continuous support for the arts drew some separation between the general public and the artists, and the "personal artists" and the reformers. Because of this idea that the "artists" were not worth funding and that they were somewhat seen as not doing successful things to benefit day to day society, many of the reform artists refused the title of "artist" at all.
To once again encourage the arts, magazines began to come into print primarily for the purpose of showing images. These photographic magazines would not only publish photographers work, but they would also hire out photographers to shoot for them. During this time, Magnum was also founded. Though scarcely, museum galleries began to exhibit some photographs, though for quite a long time, no "all-photo" gallery existed, as photographs were made more for the purpose of books rather than wall hangings. The types of photographs being created at this time, at least the "serious" types of photographs, and especially at the New York School (NYS), were greatly inspired from films of the time. These films were ones of corruption in high places and vulnerability of the little man, which was quickly soaked up by the NYS. There was also much European influence over photographic movements in the '30s. The sixteen of the NYS were a mix of US natives, emigres, and NYC natives, and all were familiar with the cubism, surrealism, and constructivism movements. Aside from surrealism, most of these photographers were against these movements and created a base in their work with which they could shed the roots of those widespread ideas. Some of the photographers dabbled in surrealism, but ultimately turned to an "approach [residing] in an engagement with the ordinary world."
Helen Levitt was one of the sixteen at the NYS and was greatly influenced by Henrie Cartier-Bresson. Levitt never joined any artistic or philosophic movements of the time, and was pegged as more of an independent photographer and film-maker. She took her own style, and although she did have some photographs displayed in MoMA, she refused a Vogue job because she disagreed with the type of commercial/fashion shooting they were asking her to do. Her book "A Way of Seeing" was comprised of photographs that were made to feel like a story of sorts, similar to that of Cartier-Bresson's work. Levitt was not socially driven to photograph in the streets of New York, but she was aesthetically driven, and photographed for the beauty of the image (and in doing so, also caught much humor in the streets of New York, similar to the type of humor seen in excerpts from Lewis Mumford's The City).
Robert Frank took on a slightly different style than Levitt. Whereas Levitt seemed a bit more "easy going", Frank spent a good deal of time in Europe with friends who were also involved in the art world. They would display work in the same exhibitions, and spoke about sculpture, painting, and other art in correlation to photography. His book "The Americans" gave the 'okay' to break all the rules, as he jumped on the bandwagon of 35mm film and available light photographs. His methods were those of trial and error, and he experimented with film and lenses to create what is now known as his "style". His work is anticlimactic and not particularly cautious of framing or fine detail. His style and work was formed around the emerging styles of the time, and he ultimately helped to create this style as well.
William Klein took an even further step from Levitt, and actually tried to do the opposite of Cartier-Bressson by being "there" and "visible" (while Cartier-Bresson was known more as the "invisible camera"). Klein had no qualms with working for Vogue and shooting commercially for them, while at the same time working on his own work. Here, "his own work" is meant in the most literal of terms. Klein's book "New York" was photographed by him, designed by him, laid out by him, and the typography and editing was done by his hand as well. He saw it cheating that others would be allowed to edit down, order, write about, and title one's images. He is known for very imperfect printing and composition, and strove to include as much information in a frame as possible (his standard lens was a 28mm). Klein was in many ways similar to Frank. Both inhabited vanguard painting and sculpture groups, both used photographs to transcend traditions in photography, both created an original body of photographs, both became filmmakers, both made largely known books, and both spoke of photography with an avant-garde style.
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