This From the Vault post was originally written by Tess Colwell and published on February 28, 2018 by the Brooklyn Historical Society. To see the latest Photo of the Week entries, visit the Brooklynology blog, or subscribe to the Center for Brooklyn History newsletter.
Brooklyn Historical Society is fortunate to have several fine art photographers represented in the photography collections, including Jacob Mann, a fine art photographer and painter based in Brooklyn. The photo of the week depicts a sunrise on Brighton Beach taken by Mann in 2009.
About this photograph, Mann says, “In my playground pictures I see the playgrounds as places from fairy tales within a dark and preoccupied adult world, places full of beauty surrounded by urban grit. The Coney Island amusement park is still there but not for long. I wanted to save its feel of sheer Americana—sometimes funny but often touching—for our children.”
BHS acquired this photograph in 2009 for the exhibition series Brooklyn Utopias: Artists Considering Differing Visions of an Ideal Brooklyn featuring the work of over 35 artists addressing different aspects of Brooklyn’s history and development. Two photographs by Jacob Mann were included in this exhibition and can be viewed in this online gallery.
Interested in seeing more photos from CBH’s collections? Visit our online image gallery, which includes a selection of our images, or the digital collections portal of Brooklyn Public Library. We look forward to inviting you to CBH in the future to research in our entire collection of images, archives, maps, and special collections. In the meantime, please visit our resources page to search our collections. Questions? Our reference staff is available to help with your research! You can reach us at [email protected].
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