Keith de Lellis Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of photographs from the 1930’s of NEW YORK NIGHT & DAY by Paul Woolf. On view will be more than 30 vintage images of New York’s glorious architecture and high-rise vistas.

Paul Woolf began photographing professionally in the early 1930’s when the skyscraper was new. Perched above the sidewalks of Manhattan, Woolf photographed this city’s dazzling, dramatic views. His skylines, both precise and romantic, capture New York’s dynamic modern architecture in every kind of light and from a variety of angles and vantage points. While his daylight views are majestic, his nighttime views are magical, breathtaking panoramas of towers sparkling with points of light. Paul Woolf’s art deco skylines include a dusky shot of the McGraw-Hill Building towering over West 42nd Street, as well as a captivating daylight image depicting a mountain of skyscrapers silhouetted in the morning haze.

Along with familiar landmarks like the Empire State Building and George Washington Bridge, Paul Woolf was on hand to photograph Rockefeller Center, inside and out, its construction and its completed structures. His images were reproduced in numerous Rockefeller Center publications and his iconic nighttime photograph of the R.C.A. Building silhouetted against St. Patrick’s Cathedral was a fixture on the cover of the Rainbow Room menu in the 1930’s through the 1940’s.

English by birth, Paul Woolf resided in New York from an early age. He perfected his art learning to produce modern professional photographs at the pre-eminent Clarence White School of Photography in the early 1930’s. His slick, clean images were well suited to the dynamic machine age photographs of architecture and design that were Paul Woolf’s forte. He was a frequent contributor to contemporary photography books and magazines that reproduced images of New York and its architecture. He also promoted the use of his photographs as murals for home, office and public spaces, a trend popularized in a 1931 Museum of Modern Art exhibition, “Murals by American Painters and Photographers.”

New York’s evolving skyline is a perpetual work in progress; it is a magnet and a challenge for photographers of every era. Paul Woolf’s spectacular 1938 night view of the recently demolished circular dome of the Hayden planetarium, with reflecting shadows, reminds us of the ability of photography to recapture the past.