Alexandra

The children in Edward Wallowitch’s photographs are not particularly playful; he does not coax them into charming tableaux, trivialize their concerns, or capture them unawares. Instead, Wallowitch’s young subjects confront the camera with a full range of adult emotion, collaborating with the photographer in portraits which would define his career. He began taking photographs while still a child himself, and at eighteen became the youngest participant in Edward Steichen’s 1955 exhibition The Family of Man at the Museum of Modern Art. Around the same time, he created this sensitive portrait, in which a pensive Alexandra peers up into his lens from a cobblestone street streaked with rain. Undiminished by the overhead view, she holds her own at the edge of the frame, her unflappable stare and smart wool coat suggesting an urban sophistication beyond her years. Wallowitch meets her gaze with evident empathy, crafting a childhood portrait unencumbered by cliché.