Hungarian-born photographer Sylvia Plachy immigrated to the United States in 1958. She is best known for her photographs in the Village Voice. Plachy’s solo shows include exhibitions at the Whitney Museum at Philip Morris, the Minneapolis Institute of Fine Arts, and venues in Canada, Europe, and China. Plachy’s award-winning books include Unguided Tour (1990); Red Light, a photographic essay on the sex industry (1996); and Self Portrait with Cows Going Home, a personal history of Eastern Europe (2004). In 2004, Plachy received the Women in Photography International Distinguished Photographer Award.
The fire of joy in solitude. . . And since in vain I have made this journey,The ground giving way to my burning steps,Let me embrace this ardorIn abstract revelry* * *
This very early Torah ark curtain from Pesaro was embroidered by Rachel Olivetti and donated to the synagogue in honor of her marriage to Judah Montefiore. The Hebrew text is a poem celebrating and…
I saw my father drowning
In surging days.
His weak hand gave a last white flutter
In the distance—
And he was gone.
I kept on alone
Along the shore,
A boy still,
With small, thin legs,
And have…