Sonia Handelman Meyer
Born
Cecil Joan Weiner

February 12, 1920
Lakewood Township, New Jersey
DiedSeptember 11, 2022
Charlotte, North Carolina (aged 102)
NationalityAmerican
OccupationPhotographer
Children2

Sonia Handelman Meyer (February 12, 1920 – September 11, 2022) was an American photographer, best known for her street photography as a member of the New York Photo League.

Early life and education

Meyer was born in Lakewood Township, New Jersey, in 1920.[1][2] She was in the first graduating class of Queens College, New York in 1941.[3]

Life and work

Meyer discovered photography in 1942 while she was a civilian worker at Fort Buchanan, Puerto Rico, for the U.S. Army Signal Corps.[4][5]

Returning to New York in the 1940s, she was a member of the New York Photo League from 1943 to 1951, as a both photographer and secretary.[4][6] Following World War II, she photographed Jewish Holocaust survivors in New York.[7][5] She participated in the 1949 exhibition This is the Photo League.[4]

After the dissolution of the Photo League in 1951, Meyer's work went largely unrecognized until 2006 when it was rediscovered by a gallery owner in Charlotte, North Carolina.[8]

In 2014 the Mint Museum in Charlotte presented the exhibition Bearing Witness: The New York Photo League and Sonia Handelman Meyer.[9][10] In 2019 she was included in the exhibition Modern Women: Modern Vision, Works from the Bank of America Collection at the Tampa Museum of Art.[11]

Meyer died in Charlotte, North Carolina, on September 11, 2022, at the age of 102.[12]

Collections

Meyer's work is held in the following permanent collections:

References

  1. ^ "Sonia Handelman Meyer". www.soniahandelmanmeyer.com. Archived from the original on March 23, 2016. Retrieved December 6, 2019.
  2. ^ "Sonia Handelman Meyer". Charlotte Museum. Archived from the original on December 6, 2019. Retrieved December 6, 2019.
  3. ^ "Alumni info: Name: Sonia Handelman Meyer". Queens College, City University of New York. Archived from the original on July 29, 2016. Retrieved December 6, 2019.
  4. ^ a b c "Revealing subjects - Sonia Handelman Meyer, 2016 ASC Honors". April 29, 2016. Archived from the original on December 6, 2019. Retrieved December 6, 2019.
  5. ^ a b Moore, Deborah Dash; Gurock, Jeffrey S.; Polland, Annie; Rock, Howard B.; Soyer, Daniel (October 10, 2017). Jewish New York: The Remarkable Story of a City and a People. NYU Press. ISBN 9781479850389.
  6. ^ Gonzalez, David (November 4, 2011). "15 Years That Changed Photography". New York Times. Archived from the original on September 30, 2019. Retrieved December 6, 2019.
  7. ^ Pine, Dan (October 5, 2012). "Radical photographers helped shape art into activism". Archived from the original on December 6, 2019. Retrieved December 6, 2019.
  8. ^ Duggan, Briana (January 6, 2014). "After 70 Years in Boxes, Photos by Charlotte Woman Find Place at Mint, Met". WFAE. Archived from the original on December 6, 2019. Retrieved December 6, 2019.
  9. ^ "Bearing Witness: The New York Photo League and Sonia Handelman Meyer". Mint Museum. Archived from the original on December 6, 2019. Retrieved December 6, 2019.
  10. ^ Thiede, Barbara (July 21, 2015). "Charlotte woman's photos show post-war America". Charlotte Observer. Archived from the original on December 8, 2019. Retrieved December 6, 2019.
  11. ^ "Current Exhibitions - Tampa Museum of Art". Archived from the original on October 10, 2019. Retrieved February 21, 2020.
  12. ^ Sandomir, Richard (September 28, 2022). "Sonia Handelman Meyer, Socially Conscious Photographer, Dies at 102". The New York Times. Retrieved September 28, 2022.
  13. ^ "Boy in Mask, Harlem 1945". www.metmuseum.org. Archived from the original on December 6, 2019. Retrieved December 6, 2019.
  14. ^ "Sonia Handelman Meyer: American, b. 1920". The Jewish Museum. Archived from the original on July 6, 2017. Retrieved December 6, 2019.
  15. ^ Dyer, Leigh (November 15, 2013). "Bearing Witness: The New York Photo League and Sonia Handelman Meyer to open November 23 at Mint Museum Randolph". Mint Museum. Archived from the original on May 16, 2019. Retrieved December 6, 2019.

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