Arthur Rothstein joined LOOK Magazine as a staff photographer in 1940 and, upon returning from serving in World War II, was named the Director of Photography, a position he held until the magazine’s demise in 1971. Before joining LOOK, Rothstein cemented his reputation as a significant image maker while working for the Farm Security Administration documenting the plight of Americans trying to survive the Depression. The materials available online are a selection of 40 assignments made for the magazine throughout the 1940s and 1950s, including several assignments documenting the city’s changing architecture (including ongoing work at the Empire State Building (1947) and construction on Park Avenue in 1957). Additionally, Rothstein covered the social life of the city an photographed everyday people in such assignments as The Cries of New York (1952) and New York in the Summertime (1949) and portrait sessions with starlets including Audrey Hepburn, Rosemary Clooney, and Dorothy Dandridge.
