Evelyn Hofer (American, born in Germany, 1922-2009) was a highly innovative photographer whose prolific career spanned five decades. Despite her extraordinary output, she was underrecognized during her lifetime and was notably referred to by New York Times art critic Hilton Kramer as “the most famous unknown photographer in America.” She made her greatest impact through a series of photobooks, published throughout the 1960s, devoted to European and American cities, including Florence, London, New York, Washington, DC, and Dublin, and a book focused on the country of Spain.

Comprising more than one hundred vintage prints in both black and white and color, Eyes on the City, the artist’s first major museum exhibition in the United States in over fifty years, is organized around those publications. The photographs to be featured combine landscapes and architectural views with portraiture, conveying the unique character and personality of these urban capitals during a period of intense structural, social, and economic transformations after World War II.