Willing to Be Lucky

Stanley Kubrick as a
young photographer
circa 1949


Willing to Be Lucky is drawn from the Museum of the City of New York’s collection of photographs from LOOK, one of the 20th century’s most influential pictorial magazines. Featuring more than 100 images from the 1940s and ‘50s, the exhibition focuses on individuals--both celebrities and ordinary people--who, in pursuing their dreams, were just offbeat enough, with a little luck, to land them in the pages of LOOK.

This small, simple and focused exhibition is a gem!... offering that rare revelation on an institution, it's collection and curatorial resourcefulness.

In one stroke, The Museum of the City of NY provides a window on a cultural time period in NYC (1940's-50's), an innovation in publishing, LOOK Magazine and the opportunities they provided one Bronx high school graduate, Stanley Kubrick to explore his craft, and find his art. Kubrick's photos of showgirls, and the boxer, Rocky Marciano render in black and white, ritualized beauty and brute strength, temptation and violence.... reflecting not only New York itself, but through lens and subject matter details that Kubrick would continue to focus on in motion pictures. - The Harlem Eye/Harlem One Stop 9.5.06

Kubrick's, "Killer's Kiss" (1955)