Museum Collections

William John “Bill” Cunningham (1929-2016) was a long-time New York Times photographer and journalist known for his “On the Street” and “Evening Hours” columns. As much a cultural anthropologist as he was a fashion photographer, Cunningham was known for candid street or event photographs of New Yorkers that depicted up-to-the-minute fashion trends. Among Cunningham’s most frequent locations to photograph his candid shots was the corner of Fifth Avenue and Fifty-Seventh Street and at the “up-to-twenty galas” he attended each week.

To achieve his telling photographs, Bill Cunningham often circulated around the city on a bicycle. In temperate weather he wore a French workers’ jacket. The bicycle here is one of thirty Cunningham owned over his many years of activity. It was made by Biria, a German manufacturer of upright bicycles designed for short rides on flat, urban surfaces. As indicated by the “Ciel Bicycles” tag also affixed to the bicycle, Cunningham probably purchased it at Ciel Bicycles, “the flagship New York City store of Biria” located at 360 East 65th Street. The jacket is also one of several he regularly wore. The Nikon camera, too, is one of several owned by Cunningham, and was probably used through the end of his career.