Portrait of a City review — a nostalgic stroll through a century of the American urban experience

Jackie Wullschlager | Financial Times | 3rd August 2026

A “nostalgic” exhibition that surveys a century of American photography. Stieglitz is generally credited with the first modernist photograph in 1907. From there America produced a roll call of great image makers, both men and women. Inevitably, much focus lands on that greatest of all melting pots, New York city. Some famous photographers, being recent immigrants, could empathise with their subjects “energy and appetite for change that is almost tangible”. Says one writer,  “exhilarating”.