Early Photos by Kubrick Coming to NY Museum

Before he ventured into the far reaches of space and consciousness with ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, probed the dark heart of humanity with ‘The Shining’ or ‘A Clockwork Orange’, and chronicled the pageantry and brutality of the Roman Empire with ‘Spartacus’, American filmmaker Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999) was a photographer for a weekly magazine.

The Museum of the City of New York presents a lesser-known side of the iconic director: his work as staff photographer at the UK fashion and celebrity weekly magazine ‘Look’ between 1945 and 1950.

Even in his early days behind a camera, Kubrick had a talent for capturing a revealing exchange or a sly glance that speaks volumes. His time at Look is the subject of a new exhibition at the New York museum, titled ‘Through a Different Lens: Stanley Kubrick Photographs.’ The show runs from May 3 through October 28, Variety reported.

The exhibit will feature more than 120 photographs by Kubrick from the Museum’s Look Magazine archive, an unparalleled collection that includes 129 photography assignments and more than 12,000 negatives from his five years as a staff photographer. For any fan of Kubrick’s films, the exhibition explores a formative phase in the career of one of the 20th-century’s most renowned motion picture directors.

“You cannot look at photographs without knowing he’s going to be a filmmaker,” said Donald Albrecht, curator of architecture and design at the museum. “There were a lot of great photographers at Look and he probably wasn’t the greatest one there, but there was something about Stanley that you just knew he had what it took to get to the next level.”

The show will be organized chronologically and will include both published and unpublished images from Kubrick. It will also have a section that illustrates links between Kubrick’s future film career and his early days at Look. One of those connections is indisputable. Kubrick’s first film, a 16-minute documentary entitled “Day of the Fight,” focuses on Walter Cartier, a boxer that he initially photographed for the magazine.

Kubrick was particularly adept at scouting human-interest stories for the magazine and for telling stories with his photos. New York, then at the height of its post-World War II powers, is the canvas on which Kubrick paints portraits of urban life - from shoeshine boys to night club revelers to young friends.