Rediscovered and uncovered

By P.W. | NEW YORK

FLOWERS stencilled on the wall dance above the bed. Their lyricism poses a stark contrast to the frightened face of little Sara—wide-eyed, beautiful and poor. She sits engulfed by blankets, trying to keep warm. This image, taken in Warsaw in 1935, became one of the most widely reproduced works by Roman Vishniac, a Russian-born photographer who died in 1990, aged 92. He is now the subject of a well-deserved retrospective at the International Centre for Photography (ICP) in New York.

The ICP recently became the repository of the Vishniac archive of some 30,000 objects: negatives, prints, film footage, memorabilia and correspondence. This trove has stimulated new research into his work and life. Not all that has emerged is laudatory; Vishniac was something of a fabulist, it seems. Yet the scope of his photographic accomplishments proves to be even greater than was previously thought. This show of 230 framed photographs and some 150 objects is magnificent and revelatory.