American Sign Language Interpreted Tour

Please join us for an Interpreted American Sign Language guided tour.

If you would like more information about tour, please contact Jazmyne Lemar at lemar@mopa.org, 619-238.7559x230

Group rate for this event is $4.00

Three Story House

Drawn from MOPA’s photography collection of more than 7000 images, Three Story House traces how photographers have captured the familiarity of the domestic environment to tell stories of how we live and where we live, as well as transforming it into a creative space to make art. With the inception of photography in 1839, photographers began to explore the importance of domesticity in our everyday lives, offering insight into the home as a nucleus for daily growth and renewal. Like a treasured heirloom, these photographs from MOPA’s collection are a pleasure to share with you here, in our house.

The Jazz Loft Project: W.Eugene Smith in NYC, 1957-1965

In 1957, W. Eugene Smith, a former photographer at Life magazine, moved out of the home he shared with his wife and four children in Croton-on-Hudson, New York and moved into a dilapidated, five-story loft building at 821 Sixth Avenue in New York City’s wholesale flower district. 821 Sixth Avenue was a late-night haunt of musicians, including some of the biggest names in jazz—Charles Mingus, Zoot Sims, Bill Evans, and Thelonious Monk among them—and countless fascinating, underground characters.

Between 1957 and 1965 W. Eugene Smith made approximately 40,000 exposures both inside the loft building at 821 Sixth Avenue, of the nocturnal jazz scene, and of the street below as seen through his fourth-floor window. He also wired the building like a surreptitious recording studio and made 1,740 reels (4,000 hours) of stereo and mono audiotapes, capturing more than three hundred musicians, among them Roy Haynes, Sonny Rollins, Bill Evans, Roland Kirk, Alice Coltrane, Don Cherry, and Paul Bley. He also recorded legends such as pianists Eddie Costa, and Sonny Clark, drummers Ronnie Free and Edgar Bateman, saxophonist Lin Halliday, bassist Henry Grimes, and multi-instrumentalist Eddie Listengart. 

Media Partners: Jazz 88  |  KPBS