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N. Jay Jaffee

N. Jay Jaffee (1921–1999), also known as Nathan Jaffee and Nat Jaffee, was a New York photographer who captured the lives of ordinary (and sometimes famous) people, city streets and country landscapes, political movements, and private moments.

Life N. Jay Jaffee was born in Brooklyn in 1921. He was the youngest son of Jewish immigrants Isadore and Anna Jaffee. After graduating junior high school at age 15, he briefly attended the New York School of Printing and trained as a typesetter. During World War II, he served as an infantry squad leader with the 104th Timberwolf Division and fought in Holland, Germany, and France. He married in 1945, had two children, and worked as a salesman in the printing industry. After living in Queens for some years, he divorced and moved to Huntington, Long Island. He died in 1999.

Photography In the 1940s and 1950s, Jaffee began photographing the Brooklyn neighborhoods in which he grew up, and soon expanded into New York's other boroughs. His formal training came after he had been photographing for some time. He attended classes taught by Sid Grossman, of the legendary Photo League,(1) and met with Edward Steichen, then curator of photography at the Museum of Modern Art. In 1950, two of his photographs were included in the MOMA group show “Fifty-One American Photographers."

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Jaffee continued documenting street life in New York and throughout the U.S., as well as in Canada and Europe. His commitment to social justice, including the anti-war and civil rights movements of the 1960s, led him to photograph political demonstrations, rallies, and concerts. His work also included portraits of well-known subjects, such as Yoko Ono, Pete Seeger, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Sid Grossman, Dan Weiner, and Felrath Hines. Jaffee’s later work focused on images of the land and sea, both dramatic and serene. (2) (3)

In the introduction to the exhibition catalog of Coney Island to Caumsett: The Photographic Journey of N. Jay Jaffee, a 50-year retrospective of his work at the Heckscher Museum in Huntington, New York, curator Janie Welker describes Jaffee's work: “He saw and recorded human activity: a lonely, windswept boardwalk; a whimsical sculpture; men sunning themselves amidst the city grime; the crisp balance of lines and light in a sparkling cityscape; a teddy bear on a clothesline. His photographs not only record the instant, they communicate the substance. The images are exquisite, enduring expositions of lights and shadow, visual textures in balanced tension. They are also filled with wit and humor, and a profound understanding of the ironies in all of our lives.” (4)

Jaffee’s photographs are in the collections of major museums and institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, National Portrait Gallery, Library of Congress, New York Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History, Bibliotheque Nationale, George Eastman House, and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston.

In addition to many group shows, solo exhibits of N. Jay Jaffee's photographs include Inward Image in 1981 and "N. Jay Jaffee Photographs: From Public to Personal"” at the University of Maryland in 2014.

Jaffee’s work has been featured in college courses at Yale University, Skidmore College, and Binghamton University. His photographs have also appeared in many books and magazines. One of his more famous images, Kishke King, appeared in the documentary "Deli Man" by Erik Anjou.

Notes
 * 1) The Photo League: A Memoir
 * 2) Remembering Sid Grossman by N. Jay Jaffee
 * 3) Felrath Hines
 * 4) Coney Island to Caumsett: The Photographic Journey of N. Jay Jaffee by N. Jay Jaffee (exhibition booklet)

Publication N. Jay Jaffee: Photographs 1947–1956 by N. Jay Jaffee. New York: Henley Press, 1976

References
 * Official Website of N. Jay Jaffee
 * Guide to the N. Jay Jaffee Photographs, Center for Brooklyn History
 * Smithsonian American Art Museum
 * N. Jay Jaffee, Jewish Museum


 * Klein, Mason and Evans, Catherine, The Radical Camera:New York's Photo League, 1936-1951. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011
 * Moore, Deborah Dash. Walkers in the City: Jewish Street Photographers of Midcentury New York. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2023
 * Rock, Howard B and Deborah Dash Moore, eds. Cityscapes: A History of New York in Images. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001
 * Tucker, Anne Wilkes., This Was the Photo League: Compassion and the Camera from the Depression to the Cold War. Chicago: Stephen Daiter Gallery, 2001