POTW: Lucille Fornasieri Gold Photographs

[Prospect Park trumpeter], circa 1975, V2008.013.81; Lucille Fornasieri Gold photographs, 2008.013; Brooklyn Historical Society.

Lucille Fornasieri Gold’s photographs are some of my favorites at Brooklyn Historical Society. Every photograph has an element of surprise, and genuine moments between photographer and subject. Gold began photographing street scenes with her Leica camera beginning in 1968 while her children were in school. She continued to photograph Brooklyn throughout her entire life. Her photographs are one of the highlights of our rich collections at BHS, and were most recently featured in the 2014 exhibition, She said, She said: Art and inspiration in the work of Nell Painter and Lucille Fornasieri Gold. It is with great sadness that we share that Lucille Fornasieri Gold recently passed away.

Gold was born in the Bay Ridge neighborhood in Brooklyn. When she began taking photographs in 1968, she would develop and print them in the kitchen darkroom of her Park Slope home. Her next apartment could not accommodate a darkroom and many of her photographs remained unprinted for years. In the 1990s, she and her second husband, Jack Gold, began scanning the old negatives. She soon moved from film to born-digital when she switched to a digital SLR while continuing to review film negatives.

About her photographs, Gold has said, “"There is always a movement, a gesture, an interesting or bizarre juxtaposition, a color or combination of colors that create a renewed impulse to see. I engage the social and moral questions, but I don't try to answer them. Ultimately there are no answers. When I'm photographing I feel the weight of the antecedents, the spirals of time, the evolution of thought and science."

Gold has received numerous accolades for her work, including first prize in a Con Edison contest “My Brooklyn.” She has exhibited her work throughout Brooklyn and Manhattan, and has had her work republished in various publications. Her photographs are also in the Brooklyn Museum collection.

The photo of the week depicts a man playing the trumpet in Prospect Park around 1975. The Lucille Fornasieri-Gold photographs collection comprises 93 color and black-and white photographs taken by Gold between 1968 and 2008. Gold’s work is primarily street photography in nature, with many posed and unposed portraits of people throughout Brooklyn and Manhattan. This collection is fully digitized and can be viewed here. In time, we will make more of Gold’s photographs available online.

Interested in seeing more photos from BHS’s collection? Visit our online image gallery, which includes a selection of our images. Interested in seeing even more historic Brooklyn images? Visit our Brooklyn Visual Heritage website here. To search BHS’s entire collection of images, archives, maps, and special collections visit BHS’s Othmer Library Wed-Sat, 1:00-5:00 p.m. library@brooklynhistory.org