Kati Horna, *Stairway to the Cathedral,* 1938.

Anita Brenner, shot by Tina Modotti, 1927.

*Top,* Ilse Bing, *Self-Portrait with Leica,* 1931; *above,* Dorothea Lange, *Japanese-American-Owned Grocery Store, Oakland, California,* 1942.

Tsuneko Sasamoto in Tokyo, 1940 (photographer unknown).

Lola Álvarez Bravo, *In Her Own Prison,* circa 1950.

*Top,* Grete Stern and Ellen Auerbach, *Ein Ringlpitis,* 1931; *above,* Helen Levitt, *New York,* circa 1942.

An outtake from a September 1, 1946, *Vogue* photo shoot, by Frances McLaughlin-Gill.

Mariette Lydis, shot by Madame d’Ora, 1921.

Annemarie Heinrich, *Serge Lifar, the Spirit of the Rose,* 1935.

Toni Frissell, *Untitled,* 1945. Pictured are William A. Campbell and Thurston L. Gaines, members of the 332nd Fighter Group in Ramitelli, Italy.

*Top,* Galina Sanko, *During an Attack,* 1943; *above,* a page out of *True Comics,* 1944.

Mae Fuller Keller, shot by Florestine Perrault Collins, early 1920s.

*Top,* Marjorie Content, *Adam Trujillo and His Son Pat,* 1933; *above,* Niu Weiyu, *The Handcrafts Group Organized by Families of Shanghai Business Owners Making Chinese Dolls,* 1956.

The Female Gaze

Alongside a show at Washington, D.C.’s National Gallery, a book re-evaluates the history of photography through the lens of the New Woman

In 1894, Frances Elizabeth Clarke—writing under the pseudonym Sarah Grand—coined the term “New Woman.” Here was the birth of a feminist ideal, one that would point the way to women’s lib and #MeToo. The illustrated book The New Woman Behind the Camera, titled for the upcoming exhibition it accompanies at the National Gallery of Art, recasts photography’s past from the perspective of these New Women, focusing especially on modern photography from the 1920s to the 1950s.

It was a time of radical change, spanning two World Wars and the golden creative period sandwiched in between, and it saw women moving behind the camera, bringing their own perspectives to portraiture, fashion, advertising, photojournalism, and even early street photography. The book contains images by names you’ll recognize—Dorothea Lange, Berenice Abbott—and others you might not: the Mexican photographer Lola Álvarez Bravo and Tsuneko Sasamoto, one of Japan’s first professional women photojournalists and, now, 106 years old. The images, cutting across decades and time zones, are as varied as you’d expect them to be, but unified by a freshly minted modernity. —Julia Vitale

Photos: National Gallery of Art, Washington/Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund/© Ana María Norah Horna Fernandez (Horna); National Gallery of Art, Washington/Pepita Milmore Memorial Fund (Modotti); Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg (Bing); National Gallery of Art, Washington/Gift of Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser (Lange); Tsuneko Sasamoto/Japan Professional Photographers Society (Sasamoto); Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser (Bravo); National Gallery of Art, Washington/Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund/© Ringl + Pit/Courtesy of the Robert Mann Gallery, New York (Stern/Auerbach); National Gallery of Art, Washington/Gift of William H. Levitt (Levitt); National Gallery of Art, Washington/R. K. Mellon Family Foundation (McLaughlin-Gill); (d’Ora); National Gallery of Art, Washington/Pepita Milmore Memorial Fund (Heinrich); National Gallery of Art, Washington/Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund (Chevalier); Toni Frissell Collection, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington (Frissell); Robert Koch Gallery (Sanko); private collection (True Comics); Dr. Arthé A. Anthony (Collins); National Gallery of Art, Washington/Purchased as the Gift of the Gallery Girls (Content); Gao Fan & Niu Weiyu Foundation (Weiyu)