Sonia Handelman Meyer (February 12, 1920 – September 11, 2022) was an American photographer, best known for her street photography as a member of the New York Photo League.
Sonia Handelman Meyer | |
---|---|
Born | Cecil Joan Weiner February 12, 1920 |
Died | September 11, 2022 Charlotte, North Carolina (aged 102) |
Nationality | American |
Occupation | Photographer |
Children | 2 |
Meyer was born in Lakewood Township, New Jersey, in 1920.[1][2] She was in the first graduating class of Queens College, New York in 1941.[3]
Meyer discovered photography in 1942 while she was a civilian worker at Fort Buchanan, Puerto Rico, for the U.S. Army Signal Corps.[4][5]
Returning to New York in the 1940s, she was a member of the New York Photo League from 1943 to 1951, as a both photographer and secretary.[4][6] Following World War II, she photographed Jewish Holocaust survivors in New York.[7][5] She participated in the 1949 exhibition This is the Photo League.[4]
After the dissolution of the Photo League in 1951, Meyer's work went largely unrecognized until 2006 when it was rediscovered by a gallery owner in Charlotte, North Carolina.[8]
In 2014 the Mint Museum in Charlotte presented the exhibition Bearing Witness: The New York Photo League and Sonia Handelman Meyer.[9][10] In 2019 she was included in the exhibition Modern Women: Modern Vision, Works from the Bank of America Collection at the Tampa Museum of Art.[11]
Meyer died in Charlotte, North Carolina, on September 11, 2022, at the age of 102.[12]
Meyer's work is held in the following permanent collections: