The Philosopher of the Vieux-Carre

Arnold Genthe was an American photographer known for his candid street photography and portraiture in the early twentieth century. Working primarily with a handheld camera, he documented urban life and cultural figures with an immediacy that anticipated modern photojournalism. His images of San Francisco's Chinatown, made before the 1906 earthquake, remain significant records of immigrant communities. Genthe's later work included celebrity portraits and landscape photography across the American West.