NEW YORK, NY.- The early work of preeminent photographer, Philip Trager, is on display in a new exhibition, Echoes of Silence: Philip Trager, Early Photographs, 1967-83, in the Prints and Stokes Gallery on the third floor of The New York Public Library’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building.

“The idea for this exhibition began with my deep appreciation of Philip Trager’s first book of photographs, Echoes of Silence,” said Stephen Pinson, the Assistant Director of Arts, Prints, and Photographs, and Robert B. Menschel Curator of Photography at The New York Public Library. “The twelve images in that book are sequenced so beautifully that they somehow seem inevitable. The images possess a quietly relentless formal beauty that informs Trager’s personal vision as a photographer and which, I think, is developed and perfected in his early work.”

Widely acknowledged as one of the foremost photographers of architecture and dance of the 20th century, Echoes of Silence focuses on Mr. Trager’s early work. Included in the exhibition are seldom seen landscape studies and photographs taken in San Francisco, Barcelona, and Paris; Mr. Trager’s celebrated architectural photographs of Connecticut and New York City from the 1970s; portraits of Mr. Trager’s wife, Ina; and several selections from an unfinished commission to document the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright. These eighty-five photographs from the first phase of Mr. Trager’s career bear witness to the emergence of an artist with a fully realized vision, imbued with equal measures of technical skill and formal beauty.

"I cannot imagine a more fitting place for this exhibition than the New York Public Library,” said Mr. Trager. “My photographic work has always been grounded in books, so it is very meaningful to me that it will now be exhibited in this illustrious library. I have admired and often visited the Schwarzman Building, first photographing it in 1978. I am grateful for the keen eye, discerning intelligence (and intensive work) that Stephen Pinson, the library’s Curator of Photographs, brought to the making of this exhibition.”

Echoes of Silence: Philip Trager, Early Photographs, 1967-83, features more than 20 photographs by Mr. Trager that have never been published or exhibited previously. Many of the featured New York photographs have not been on display in New York City for the past 30 years. All works in the exhibition are from the Photography Collection of The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints, and Photographs.

Echoes of Silence: Philip Trager, Early Photographs, 1967-83, is open from October 12, 2012 through February 17, 2013 in the Prints and Stokes Gallery located on the third floor of The New York Public Library’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on 42nd Street and 5th Avenue. Admission is free.