About

Marcia Bricker Halperin, a lifelong Brooklynite, has been photographing the character and landscape of New York City since the 1970s.

She received a Master of Fine Arts from Brooklyn College and soon after had her first solo exhibition at the Midtown Y Gallery. In the late 1970s, she was active in the Photographers Forum, an organization that was a continuation of the 1940s Photo League, reflecting their humanistic and aesthetic concerns. She assisted with organizing their meetings and panels held at the New School, which featured photographers such as W. Eugene Smith and Roy DeCarava. She attended the evening photography class taught by Lisette Model and walked Ms. Model back to her Greenwich Village home after class.

From 1978 to 1980 she was employed by the CETA Artist’s Project under the auspices of the Cultural Council Foundation. As a member of the documentation team, her assignments included photographing the Soviet refugees and their introduction to American culture in Brighton Beach, photographing housing issues in Hell's Kitchen, and taking many of the photographs of Mierle Laderman Ukeles' iconic conceptual project, Touch Sanitation.

She went on to spend 35 years in K-12 education teaching art and photography and using her creativity in special education with disabled and autistic students. Since retiring, she has been scanning and printing large bodies of unseen negatives from her archives.

Through her photography she hopes to relate a human story of a specific time, capture a place's essence, and freeze details of life.

Select Exhibitions

2020 NYCs Vanished Cafeterias
University of Michigan, Lane Hall Gallery

2018 The Invisible Jew, Detour Gallery Red Bank, New Jersey

2017 NY Times Lens Blog feature and Metropolitan section Album

2017 Spoke the Hub Works on the Wall, Brooklyn, solo exhibition, artist’s talk

2016 Queens Museum, photographic documentation included in the exhibition
Maintenance Art of Mierle Laderman Ukeles

2016 Essex Street Market, exhibition of market photos from the 1970s

2014 The Jew as the “Other”, Yiddish NY Festival, Abrazzo Interno Gallery

2008 Click! A Crowd-Curated Exhibition, Brooklyn Museum

2007 Honorable Mention, My Brooklyn exhibition, Brooklyn Public Library

2007 Diversity of Devotion photo-documentary project

2006 Open house NY photography exhibit

1993 Images of Jewish Life, Klutznick Museum, Washington, D.C.

1982 Midtown Y Photo Gallery, 14th Street, NYC, solo exhibition

Recognition

2012     BRIC Media Arts Fellowship

2009     NYS Council on the Arts/Department of Cultural Affairs Community Arts Regrant awardee

2007     Adventures on a Tzitza String, official documentary selection, Coney Island Film Festival

2007     Outstanding Achievement in Documentary Filmmaking, Brooklyn College Film Festival

2003     Bertelsmann Foundation Innovative Educator

1979      Voice Choice, Village Voice review by Fred McDarrah

Collections 

Center for Brooklyn History, Marcia Bricker Photographs Collection, Brooklyn New York 

Brooklyn Museum

City Lore Photo Archive

Walter and Naomi Rosenblum Collection

Daniel and Joyce Cowin Photography Collection 

International Center of Photography

Photography Work Experience

CETA Artist’s Project, 1978-1980

Art and Photography instructor - Brooklyn College, Kingsborough Community College, and Educational Alliance Art School 

NYC Department of Education, multimedia and technology 

Photographer, Spoke the Hub Dancing