New York City, New York,

1969

A canonical twentieth-century street photographer, Winogrand exposed some twenty thousand rolls of films throughout his lifetime. His photographs embrace split-second chance encounters while capturing perfectly harmonious—and at times comical—compositions. His pursuit of controlled chaos on urban streets can be seen in this work, in which two small girls playing hand games are mimicked by two older women hailing a taxicab. Each pair appears in its own world: one of blissful play and the other rooted in mundane reality. A closer look also reveals Winogrand’s expert alignment of one woman’s pregnant belly so that it eclipses the head of the small boy next to her, a visual device emblematic of the artist’s layering of everyday visual cues.