Clayton Patterson

Clayton Patterson and his wife Elsa Rensaa came to New York City from Canada in 1979. In 1983 they bought a small storefront building on the Lower East Side, and began to document the history, social life, and politics of the neighborhood. Walking the streets of the neighborhood opened an amazing body of photography. Over the years they developed probably the largest inner-city archive in America, hundreds of thousands of photos, plus videos and street ephemera. In 1988 they made a video that...See more

Clayton Patterson and his wife Elsa Rensaa came to New York City from Canada in 1979. In 1983 they bought a small storefront building on the Lower East Side, and began to document the history, social life, and politics of the neighborhood. Walking the streets of the neighborhood opened an amazing body of photography. Over the years they developed probably the largest inner-city archive in America, hundreds of thousands of photos, plus videos and street ephemera. In 1988 they made a video that became known as the Tompkins Square Park Police Riot tape. It was the first time a handheld, commercially available video camera was used to hold police accountable. Clayton has also edited and published a number of books on Lower East Side history, culture and politics, including Captured: A Film & Video History of the Lower East Side; Resistance: A Radical Social and Political History of the Lower East Side; and the three-volume Jews: A People's History of the Lower East Side. In 1986 Clayton and Elsa turned their storefront into the Clayton Gallery & Outlaw Art Museum, which has shown a galaxy of artists overlooked by the standard art world hype. Since 2013 he has organized the annual Acker Awards to pay tribute to such artists and the community members who support them. The filmmakers Dan Levin and Ben Solomon made a documentary feature about Clayton and Elsa, Captured, released in 2008. They've also been portrayed in graphic novel style in the book Clayton: Godfather of Lower East Side Documentary, edited by Julian Voloj, with work by eighteen artists, published in 2020. See less