“One of my favorite photographs from the archive shows four women on a bench during their lunch hour at Bryant Park. One woman talks while the other three lean in attentively. Tea is clearly being spilled. It’s one of those timeless, universal shots, a scene that is comforting in a way because it repeats itself in every country, and across every generation. True, nothing monumental is happening, but I’d argue that that’s exactly what makes it so good.”

“In 2021…Andrew Baer unearthed thousands of negatives his father had sealed away in the mid-1950s. This unpublished body of work is now the subject of the very first book devoted to this quiet chronicler of a world rebuilding itself, alongside an exhibition in New York…”

Shadows of the Past

“World War II was over. Reconstruction was underway in many nations, and photographer John Baer was right in the thick of it. For nearly a decade, he documented public life, creating a remarkable legacy that lay in boxes, waiting to be discovered….”

“Imagine sitting in an overstuffed chair, in a hushed, book-lined sanctuary, completely spellbound by a virtuoso storyteller spinning tales of love, war, resilience, post-war recovery in Europe and the canvas of artistic mid-century New York City…The images are wonderful, the sequencing is stunning, the stories are captivating…”

“. …Baer’s sense of composition, handling of light and timing seem mature from the beginning, thanks to which many people are already referring to the archive as one of the most significant “rediscoveries” of recent years…”

“Some photographers build a career step by step. Others disappear almost completely from view, until their work resurfaces years later. John Baer (1920–1994) belongs to the latter category. His name may not immediately ring a bell with many photography enthusiasts, but John Baer: The Extraordinary Ordinary: A Memoir in Photographs, 1945–1954 shows that the work of a remarkable photographer has been rediscovered here…”

“Stepping up as a new contemporary to Vivian Meier and Garry Winogrand, Baer’s photographs depict a hopeful world rebuilding and readjusting to a new order following one of the deadliest wars in human history…”

“John Baer grabbed a Leica from a captured German soldier in 1945. Nearly 50 years later, his son found the negatives – which were some of the best postwar street photographs ever.”

“Baer’s collection is a moving portrait of Europe and New York City in the decade after WWII. Now, almost a century on, a debut book demonstrates his gift for catching people in the most unguarded and vulnerable moments of their lives – at work, at rest, at play. John Baer: The Extraordinary Ordinary highlights a world both familiar and forever changed.”

“Perched on the fire escape of their fifth-floor walk-up, Baer studied the movements of pedestrians and the geometry of crosswalks, traffic patterns, and urban infrastructure. After work and on weekends, he roamed the city photographing people at work and at play, sitting in Bryant Park, shopping on Fifth Avenue, and skating at Rockefeller Center.”

“Featuring scenes and people from the New York City of the early 1950s, the photos … document a ‘rich and intense time in world history.’

There are also photos that ‘capture a world struggling to understand itself following years of war and political realignment’ from the "Postwar Europe" of the late 1940s and early 1950s.”