Fundación MAPFRE is a Spanish-based social service organization which is active in social action, culture, health promotion, accident prevention, and insurance. It’s cultural activities include museums that feature visual arts and photography in Madrid and Barcelona.

I visited the Madrid museum in June. It featured two photography exhibits that focused on images of cities. The first is by Russian-American photographer Anastasia Samoylova. Her project, Image Cities, won the foundation’s biennial KBr Photo Award in 2021. Samoylova’s photos were taken in Moscow, New York and cities throughout Europe.

The bright contemporary look of Samoylova’s images could not be more of a contrast from the work of Louis Stettner. His pictures of New York and Paris, from the 1940’s to the 1980’s, are shot in black and white, sometimes dark, sometimes grim. Stettner, a Marxist, frequently focused on working class themes.

Anastasia Samoylova

Louis Stettner