Photo By Gail

For Movie Marquee II (Afternoon) from 1972, Yvonne Jacquette (1934 – 2023) looks up. The canopy of the East Village’s now- demolished Irving Place Theater overhangs the skyward view, while the Consolidated Edison building rises beyond. The startling perspective refreshes the standard cityscape by finding release from the density of Manhattan. The radical vantage point, extreme cropping, asymmetry, and flat planes of color draw inspiration from Japanese wood block print design.

Photographed in the New York Historical Society in Manhattan.