Serving as a deeply personal love letter to his hometown, this collection forms the visual foundation of FATHOM’s major monograph project, “NATIVE EYE | New York in the Late 20th Century.” Prompted by a 1994 conversation with his mentor Richard Avedon, Drew Carolan began reexamining his early, forgotten street archives with a fresh perspective. The resulting images capture the fleeting, everyday realities of the city’s inhabitants, ranging from children cooling off in fire hydrants during the brutal summer of 1975 to anonymous faces navigating the grit of the Lower East Side. It stands as a masterful, empathetic memoir of a vibrant metropolis that no longer exists.
Drew Carolan has built a storied career as a photographer and filmmaker. His work has been lauded in films, television, magazines, books, and exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the world. Born into a blue collar family on the lower east side of New York, Drew’s photography conveys a deep sense of empathy; whether he’s shooting global celebrities or documenting American sub-cultures. His monograph MATINEE All Ages on the Bowery 1983 – 1985 was published in 2017 by Radio Raheem, Brooklyn and Boston.
