Carin Drechsler-Marx collection of Bowery photographs

Carin Drechsler-Marx grew up in France and Germany and moved to the United States in 1960. In 1968 she moved with her husband, editor and critic Henry Marx, to an apartment on 12th Street and 4th Avenue, where she lived until 2023. During long walks in the neighborhood, she was shocked by the poverty in such a rich country, and "realized that the Bowery was a microcosm of the city at large." She began photographing street life, and obtained permission to photograph events and conditions in several shelters and one flophouse. One of the people she photographed, self-identified as "Big Jim," told her: "I am the loneliest person in the world. I am a 'bum.'"She also developed relationships with local artists and photographed them, their homes, and/or events they held. Her work has been shown at the Museum of the City of New York, Goethe House New York, Acadamy of Arts in Berlin, Galerie Rahmen Muller in Munich, and DiGiTouch Gallery in Berlin, among other locations.