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‘POSTWAR PERSPECTIVES’ WILL OPEN AT LAURENCE MILLER GALLERY JAN. 19

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NEW YORK CITY — On view January 19–March 29, The Laurence Miller Gallery will present “Postwar Perspectives.” This survey of more than 50 works made between 1945 and 1960 explores the major trends and attitudes at midcentury as expressed by photographers around the world.

Photographers include Henri Cartier-Bresson, Joan Colom, Robert Frank, Charles Harbutt, Helen Levitt, Roy De Carava, Paul Strand, Eikoh Hosoe, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Peter Keetman, Ted Croner, William Klein, Fred Herzog, Ed van der Elsken and Mario Giocomelli.

While the United States settled into a period of postwar prosperity, celebrating its victories in Germany and the Pacific, much of Europe and Japan began the long process of recovery, both spiritual and physical. On the one extreme is Eisenstaedt’s classic “V.J. Day at Times Square, NYC, August 15, 1945,” and on the other, one can sense the despair evident in Keetman’s bird’s-eye view of destruction that once was downtown Munich.

Anxiety and alienation seem to be common themes around the globe, from Fan Ho’s 1955 “Running off the Tracks,” in which a solitary figure dodges glowing railroad tracks, to Val Telberg’s 1948 self-portrait from his series “Long Night Group,” in which he seems to dissolve into thin air.

There is much experimentation as well. In Vancouver in the late 1950s, Herzog produced dazzling color pictures of a downtown awash with neon, while Levitt in New York captured an old woman sitting in her window, world weary and alone. Both Keetman and Toni Schneiders in Germany extend a rich heritage of abstraction, making long exposures and multiple images that take the viewer beyond what the eye can see.

Laurence Miller Gallery is at 20 West 57th Street. For information, 212-397-3930 or www.laurencemillergallery.com.