E.J. Bellocq

John Ernest Joseph Bellocq, more commonly referred to as EJ Bellocq, was a photographer who worked in New Orleans at the turn of the 20^th century. Born and bred in that city, he made a living taking pictures of ships and machinery, and creating photographic documents of landmarks. Though it was not widely known at the time, Bellocq also spent much of his time photographing the city’s underbelly, most notably the prostitutes who worked in the legalized red light district of Storyville and the opium dens in Chinatown. His haunting portraits of prostitutes were unearthed after his death, and the Storyville works became the focal point of an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1970, as well as the subject of a book by the photographer Lee Friedlander, which together catapulted him to posthumous artistic fame.

In addition to the MoMA exhibition, Bellocq was also the subject of the exhibition “The Mysterious Monsieur Bellocq,” which opened at the International Center for Photography in 2004.