Legendary Fashion Photographer Bill Cunningham’s Archive is Acquired by the New York Historical

Aug 04, 2025

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A person wearing a large fur hat, a heavy coat with a high collar, and white gloves poses in front of the Guggenheim Museum in New York City on a winter day, with bare trees and parked cars visible. — Guggenheim Museum (built 1959) as part of the *Facades* series by Bill Cunningham

The New York Historical has acquired the archive of renowned fashion photographer Bill Cunningham, securing a permanent home for tens of thousands of his images.

Cunningham, a legendary figure in New York street photography, died in 2016 at age 87. His familiar presence outside fashion shows and events became a defining feature of New York Fashion Week and the city’s social scene. Since his death, there has been ongoing speculation about what would happen to his body of work.

Last month, The New York Historical Society — the city’s first museum and a major cultural institution chronicling over 400 years of American history — announced it had acquired Cunningham’s photographic archive. The collection includes negatives, slides, contact sheets, prints, correspondence, ephemera, and tens of thousands of images documenting decades of fashion and city life.

A person in a white dress and ornate hat sits alone in a subway car covered with graffiti, with posters and scribbles on the walls and doors. — Editta Sherman in costume on graffiti-covered subway car (circa 1968-1976) by Bill Cunningham

“We are thrilled to have been chosen as the permanent home for the Bill Cunningham archive,” Louise Mirrer, president and CEO of The New York Historical, says in a press release. “Bill, who famously turned fashion photography into cultural anthropology, is unique among American chroniclers of social life in New York.”

Six women in elaborate, early 20th-century dresses and large hats stand on a city street in front of a grand stone building with columns. Some are smiling and holding parasols or fans. — Municipal Building, built 1914 by Bill Cunningham

Bill Cunningham was a fashion photographer for The New York Times, who shot street-style portraits for over four decades. Cunningham moved to New York in 1948, initially working in advertising and soon striking out on his own to make hats under the name “William J.” After serving a tour in the U.S. Army, he returned to New York and began writing for the Chicago Tribune. While working at the Tribune and Women’s Wear Daily, he began taking photographs of fashion on the streets of New York. The New York Times first published a group of his impromptu pictures in December 1978, which soon became a regular series.

The Bill Cunningham Archive consists of approximately 600 linear feet of items, the majority of which are photographs spanning from the late 1960s to the 2010s. Included in the archive are On the Street photographs dating back to the 1970s and 80s, three decades of Met Gala photographs, depictions of fashion shows in New York and Paris, and personalized notebooks.

The archive joins a notable collection of Cunningham’s personal items already held by the New-York Historical Society, including the bicycle he used to navigate the city, his first camera (an Olympus Pen-D 35mm), and selections from Facades, his eight-year photography project documenting New York City’s architectural and fashion history, which was exhibited at the museum in 2014.

Image credits: All photos by Bill Cunningham, featuring Editta Sherman, courtesy of The New York Historical.