Photo Museums

Few photographers shaped the visual language of the mid-20th century with the clarity, empathy, and narrative force of Ruth Orkin. Long recognized as a key figure in the rise of American photojournalism, Orkin forged a body of work that placed women—ordinary and extraordinary—at the center of the modern world. Ruth Orkin: Women on the Move, on view at the National Museum of Women in the Arts from December 12, 2025, through March 29, 2026, revisits this legacy through 21 iconic and intimate photographs made between the 1950s and 1970s.

For the first time in New York City, the World Press Photo Exhibition 2025 opens its doors, presenting the 42 winners of the annual World Press Photo Contest. This year’s selection brings together striking and thought-provoking images that capture the defining issues of our time, offering a window into urgent global stories through the lens of exceptional photographers.

When The Pavement Breathes is a vivid exploration of those fleeting, often overlooked moments that quietly transform the mundane into the extraordinary. Through spontaneous and candid encounters, Margarita Mavromichalis reveals a street world alive with subtle disruptions—unexpected juxtapositions, fleeting expressions, visual coincidences, and delicate details that momentarily suspend routine perception. In her images, the street is not merely a backdrop for daily life but a living, breathing stage where the ordinary continuously flirts with surprise.

The Gordon Parks Foundation is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a yearlong series of exhibitions, publications, fellowships and events, all of which will highlight how the legacy of Gordon Parks (1912–2006) continues to inform contemporary artistic practice in new and innovative ways. Since its founding in 2006 to steward Parks’ multifaceted work as a photographer, musician, writer and filmmaker, the Foundation has steadily grown and expanded its capacity to provide crucial support to emerging, mid-career and late-career artists across a wide variety of disciplines. This focus on interdisciplinarity is at the heart of both the Foundation and the legacy of Parks himself, who believed unreservedly in the power of art to be a catalyst for social change and to illuminate the human condition.

From 12 January, Britain’s everyday landscapes take on a new role. High streets become exhibition halls. Bus shelters become frames. Railway platforms and shopping centres transform into places of quiet reflection. With the launch of Portrait of Britain Vol. 8, photography steps out of the gallery and into public life—where it belongs.

The International Center of Photography (ICP) is proud to present Eugène Atget: The Making of a Reputation, an exhibition that examines how Eugène Atget (1857–1927) came to be regarded as one of the forefathers of modern photography through the timely and tireless advocacy of Berenice Abbott. Featuring historic prints from ICP’s collection alongside landmark publications and other printed ephemera, the exhibition reconsiders the role that Abbott played in establishing Atget’s now-canonical status, sometimes to the detriment of her own remarkable career as a photographer. Though Atget didn’t live to see it, Abbott became the ideal steward, proving that every photographer needs a champion.

Huxley-Parlour is pleased to present The Yellow Desert, a photography exhibition by contemporary Chinese photographer Zhang Kechun. Featuring eleven new large-format works from his latest series, begun in August 2025, the exhibition explores the Gobi Desert across Northern China and Southern Mongolia. Through landscape photography that bridges history, culture, and human presence, Zhang Kechun examines the complex relationship between desolation, memory, and modern life in this vast and evolving terrain.

The project Fay and Gay by Samantha Yancey, on view throughout January 2026, offers an intimate and deeply human portrait of devotion, routine, and shared identity. This compelling body of work centers on Fay and Gay, twin sisters born in 1936 near Pelahatchie, Mississippi, whose lives have unfolded side by side for nearly nine decades.

Gilman Contemporary presents a striking introduction to the work of Alia Ali, an artist whose multicultural background spanning Yemen, Bosnia, and the United States deeply informs her visual language. Her photographs, rich in pattern and color, navigate the complex terrain of identity, migration, and belonging. Rather than offering conventional portraiture, Ali envelops her subjects in boldly patterned textiles, allowing fabric itself to become both veil and voice. These coverings obscure familiar markers of identity, inviting viewers to question how much of what we think we know about a person is shaped by what we see—or what we assume.