May Day, Union Square, New York City

Brooklyn-born photographer Jerome Liebling produced a substantial body of work and made significant contributions to the pedagogy of photography and filmmaking in the United States. Liebling taught at the University of Minnesota for twenty years, establishing the institution’s first photography and film program, and then for another two decades at Hampshire College in Massachusetts as the head of the photography, film, and video program. Prior to his teaching and artistic careers, Liebling served in World War II, returning home in 1946 to study design and photography at Brooklyn College. At this time, Liebling joined New York’s socially aware Photo League, using street photography to uncover the realities and hardships of daily life. Liebling’s work is held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian, and the J. Paul Getty Museum, among many others.