Photographer
Georgeen Comerford
Georgeen Comerford is currently an associate professor in the Department of Art at Brooklyn College, CUNY. Her photography has focused on diverse themes such as the South Bronx, the women’s movement, Coney Island, and landscapes. She holds a B.F.A. from Cooper Union, and an M.F.A. from Brooklyn College. She studied with Walter Rosenblum and Diane Arbus.
Her one-person shows include Gallery 1199, Soho Photo Gallery, Brooklyn College Gallery, and the Milwaukee Center of Photography. She has appeared in group shows at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, Schenectady Museum, Schoelkopf Gallery, Queens Museum, and the Neuberger Museum. Her photography has been featured in The New York Times, New York magazine and in Italian, German and Canadian publications. Her work is also represented in the Library of Congress collection.
Credits
The Lehman College Art Gallery hosted the original exhibit. Nina Castelli Sundell, then director, was assisted in the installation by Mary-Joan Bono and Susan Hoeltzel, education director.
Without the children of the Bronx, whose photographs appear in this website, the original exhibit would never have been possible. The adults who shared recollections of their childhood in the Bronx and whose voices are such an integral part of this online exhibit, also deserve our recognition.
Bronx native Georgeen Comerford brought an artist’s eye and sensibilities in capturing contemporary images of Bronx children over a period of years, and in skillfully reproducing and selecting the vintage images shown in this website.
Emita B. Hill and Davis R. B. Ross, then co-directors of the Bronx Institute, shared Ms. Comerford’s vision and helped bring the exhibit to reality. This project was one of several important initiatives undertaken under their direction and which directly used oral history testimony in its presentation.
Tabitha Kirin, then deputy director of the Bronx Institute, curated the original exhibit. She interviewed many of the individuals whose oral history testimony was used in the exhibit. It took her and the Institute staff several years to prepare this exhibit, ensure proper permissions and funding. She was assisted in managing all of these details by Barbara Fasciani, her research assistant.
Funding for the original exhibit was provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Agnese Lindley Foundation, Gannett Newspapers, the Bronx Council for the Humanities, New York National Bank, Hygrade Milk and Cream Co., and many individual donations.