POTW: Lucille Fornasieri Gold photographs

[Hasidic boys with cotton candy], circa 2003, V2008.013.59Lucille Fornasieri Gold photographs, 2008.013; Brooklyn Historical Society.

The Lucille Fornasieri Gold photographs is one of my favorite collections at Brooklyn Historical Society. I love that her photographs almost always have an element of surprise and I think they offer a unique perspective of Brooklyn. The photo of the week is from 2003. It displays young Hasidic boys eating cotton candy on a Brooklyn sidewalk. I find this photograph particularly charming because it is full of so many candid moments.

Lucille was born in the Bay Ridge neighborhood of Brooklyn in 1930. Her father, a professor of architectural studies, first exposed her to photography as a child. She started photographing with a Leica camera in 1968, when her children were at school. She would develop and print her photographs in the kitchen darkroom of her Park Slope apartment. Around 2008, she self-published three collections of her photography: "Old City," "Young City," and "Brooklyn Doggie."

She says of her photography: "There is always a movement, a gesture, an interesting or bizarre juxtaposition, a color or combination of colors that create a renewed impulse to see. I engage the social and moral questions, but I don't try to answer them. Ultimately there are no answers. When I'm photographing I feel the weight of the antecedents, the spirals of time, the evolution of thought and science."

This collection contains 93 photographs taken by Fornasieri Gold between 1968 and 2008. To view more photographs from this collection, check out this gallery.

Interested in seeing more photos from BHS’s collection? Visit our online image gallery, which includes a selection of our images. Interested in seeing even more historic Brooklyn images? Visit our Brooklyn Visual Heritage website here. To search BHS’s entire collection of images, archives, maps, and special collections visit BHS’s Othmer Library Wed-Sat, 1:00-5:00 p.m. library@brooklynhistory.org