Red Eye to New York

1984-1987

Throughout the 1980s, Janet Delaney’s job in a San Francisco photography lab was punctuated by the last-minute flights she would take to New York as a courier. Within these unexpected pockets of time she spent in New York, Delaney would wander the streets with her Rolleiflex camera, attending to the rhythms and characters of this much-mythologised city. Despite being tired and often lost, the act of photographing made Delaney feel present and alert, in tune with the crowds that pushed past her and mesmerized by the depth of history woven into the city’s structures.

The color photographs that make up this series are brimming with life and reveal the formation of Delaney’s generous approach to photographing streets and the people who inhabit them, capturing the precious mixture of private lives lived in public and transient moments of connection between photographer and subject.

VIEW PORTFOLIO

Publications
2023. Framelines 05, portfolio and interview
2021. Red Eye to New York (MACK) with text by Amanda Maddox, Associate Curator, J. Paul Getty Museum

Collections
The Pilara Foundation, San Francisco, CA

Press + Interviews

Solo Exhibitions
2022. Euqinom Gallery, Janet Delaney: New York in the 80s, San Francisco, CA
2015. Jules Maeght Gallery, New York City 1984-1987, San Francisco CA

Group Exhibitions
2013. Clamp Art, New York City, c. 1985, New York, NY