Harold Feinstein, The Wheel of Wonders: the exhibition on an eternal New Yorker at Maison Doisneau

Harold Feinstein always wanted to be a photographer. Armed with his camera, he immortalized the post-war United States, where Americans were enjoying a new golden age, but under the constant threat of war. Maison Doisneau pays tribute to this exceptional artist with a free retrospective exhibition, on view from March 7 to June 1, 2025.

A native of Brooklyn, Harold Feinstein has found a muse in his neighborhood, a subject that never ceases to renew itself. For more than 50 years, he has photographed the streets, the people, the businesses, and especially the area around Coney Island, a former island popular with New Yorkers in the summertime. It's a place of beaches, amusement parks and a population eager for distraction in a divided America.

The Harold Feinstein, Wheel of Wonders exhibition focuses on this theme, central to the artist's work and life. Very sensitive to more modest people, immigrants and workers. Over the years, Feinstein's photographs of Coney Island have formed a story with many voices, a common narrative that links an entire population.

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Harold Feinstein saw photography as a way of sharing reality, rather than an art form. His portraits and scenes of everyday life were intended to tell the story of the banal, of the daily lives of all those individuals who make up the American people.

By returning again and again to the same places, the photographer was able to draw a changing portrait of America and its people. The Cold War, the Korean War, McCarthyism, social and racial struggles, the Great Depression... All these events stand out like an invisible backdrop behind these snapshots.

Despite the conflicts, the social problems, despite the stressful atmosphere of a city like New York, Harold Feinstein's work stands out for its light, its poetry, the joy that emanates from his subjects.

The exhibition also focuses on two distinct series: Feinstein's forced enlistment in thearmy during the Korean War, and his collaborations with jazz artists and musicians. Always armed with his camera, Harold Feinstein captured every moment of life, his own and those of strangers he met in clubs, on the subway, on the street or in public places.

Always drawn to humanity in all its forms, the photographer chose to focus on this ephemeral, noisy, chaotic, yet joyful life. Discover Harold Feinstein's New York at Maison Doisneau.