Bronx Boys: Storytelling with a Lens brings together the work of photographers Morton Broffman and Jules Aarons, both born to Jewish immigrant families in the Bronx and shaped by a shared commitment to documenting the human experience.
Exhibition Now Open
Biographies
Morton Broffman
Jules Aarons
Morton Broffman was born in 1928 to Russian Jewish immigrants and grew up in the crowded, multilingual neighborhoods of the Bronx.
Following high school, he attended Rutgers University. After service in the Army, he moved with his family to Washington, D. C. where he worked as a history teacher.
He then pursued a career in photography. As an independent freelance photographer, his major client was Cathedral Age Magazine, the quarterly publication for The National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.. It was a relationship that lasted more than a quarter of a century.
Broffman passionately recorded important periods in the country’s history…the Civil Rights Movement, including the Selma to Montgomery March and Resurrection City. Also, numerous Vietnam Era events. To those, he brought a photo editor’s point of view, and deep convictions on social justice.
His series done in Appalachia showcased his compassion for the needs of those less fortunate across race and geography drawing a parallel with his Resurrection City work, illuminating the subject to the broader public.
Jules Aarons was an acclaimed astrophysicist who published over a hundred scientific papers in his career. Yet, he pursued photography as a hobby with great achievement and recognition. As a native of the Bronx… born there in 1921,…he graduated from City College of New York in 1942 and served served in the Army Signal Corps.
Following the war, he earned a Masters Degree in physics at Boston University. In 1953, he won a Fulbright Scholarship and was awarded a Ph.D. at the University of Paris.
His career was in scientific research and as a professor at Boston University. In Boston, he developed an interest in the ethnic neighborhoods of the West and
North End. As his scientific achievements grew, he was increasingly invited to conferences throughout the world, always taking his camera with him…to Europe, Asia and South America.
“I developed and interest in groupings of people and in the design of people against their physical environment. I moved in close to people of interest.” said
Aarons.