Born in the era of the pushcart, Sid Kaplan has seen New York City through wars, assassinations, and cultural shifts. Through the lens of a camera, he viewed the protests of the '60s, the chaos of the '70s and ’80s, and the wholesale cleanup of the '90s. When he wasn’t witnessing history in the streets, he was printing pictures in a darkroom to make a living. Over the decades, his focus has shifted from examining New York’s street life and architecture to documenting the city’s fading Jewish presence. Sid’s work has been archived and exhibited in MOMA, The New York Museum of Transportation, The Museum of the City of New York, and other institutions.
Printing the work of others has always been Sid’s bread and butter. Throughout the ’60s, he worked at commercial studios, printing headshots for Broadway hopefuls. In the ’70s, he made ends meet by printing the provocative, then illegal, nudes sold in Times Square’s sex shops, and by the '80s, he had enough connections to print privately out of the darkroom he had set up in his home. His clients included Weegee, Robert Frank, Martin Schultz, Lou Stettner, Allen Ginsberg and others. Working for himself gave him the freedom to cross the country several times, photographing rodeos, cemeteries, ghost towns, show girls, and anything else he thought could be, in his words, “the greatest picture in the world”.
SID KAPLAN, PHOTOGRAPHED BY LOUIS STETTNER, 1957
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
1954 Village Camera Club: NYC
1974 14th Street Midtown Y Gallery: NYC
1976 Christopher Gallery: NYC
1988 Union Square Gallery: NYC / Deconstruction: The 3rd Ave El
1990 Union Square Gallery: NYC / The Gravestones of Trinity Churchyard
1994 University of Delaware Janvier Gallery: Newark, DL
1997 Leica Gallery: NYC
2003 Icebox Gallery: Minneapolis, MN
2004 Track Artwork Factory: Paris, France
2005 Sol Mednick Gallery /The University of the Arts: Philadelphia, PA /A Fly on the Wall
2006 Deborah Bell Photographs: NYC / 1950's to Present
2009 Roosevelt Island Historical Society: NYC / The Last Trolley Car
2009 Deborah Bell Photographs: NYC / Urban Stonehenge
2009 Track Artwork Factory: Paris, France / New York 1950's
2013 Icebox Gallery: Minneapolis, MN / Drive by Shooting
2013 25CPW: NYC / The Last of a Vanishing Breed
2014 New York Transit Museum: NYC/ Deconstruction of the Third Avenue El
2020 Les Douches La Galerie: Paris, France / New York Rhythm
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
1977 Parson's School of Design: NYC / Living for the City
1978 New York Historical Society: NYC / Street Kids
1979 University of California at Santa Cruz: Sant Cruz, CA / Exploring the Documentary
1988 Museum of the City of New York: NYC / City Play
1992 Minneapolis Institute of Arts: Minneapolis, MN /Martin Weinstein's Gifts to the Photography Collection
1988 Portland Museum of Art: Portland, ME / The Ernst Haas Memorial Collection
1999 Keith de Lellis Gallery: NYC / Times Squared
1999 Barry Singer Gallery: Petaluma, CA
2007 Track Artwork Factory: Paris France / American Moment
2013 Minneapolis Institute of Art: Minneapolis, MN / Minnesota Sports
2020 Minneapolis Institute of Art: Minneapolis, MN / Just Kids
SELECTED COLLECTIONS
Alliance Capital Management / New York, NY
Art Institute of Chicago / Chicago, IL
The Buhl Collection / New York, NY
International Center of Photography / New York, NY
Light Work / Syracuse, NY
Medtronic / Minneapolis, MN
The Minneapolis Institute of Arts / Minneapolis, MN
Museum of the City of New York / New York, NY
The Museum of City Fine Arts/ Houston, TX
The Museum of Modern Art/ New York, NY
New York Historical Society/ New York, NY
Portland Museum of Art/ Portland, ME