From PRX.

I'm Kurt Anderson, and this is the Studio 360 podcast.

Studio 360 series New York icons tells the stories behind works of art that took shape in the city,

but which have shaped the lives of people everywhere.

On this episode, we look at Gary Winogrand, the brilliant, prolific street photographer

who worked from the 1950s into the 1980s.

He photographed all kinds of things, but especially crowds of people in public spaces and beautiful women and zoo animals and their human visitors.

During his career, Winnegrine was celebrated for his idiosyncratic vision and style and got

three Guggenheim fellowships. He also got plenty of criticism for photographs that seemed to a lot of

people to objectify women. Winnegan died at age 56 in 1984, but his pictures still make waves.

For the latest in our American icon series, producer Richard Yeh

looks at why Winnegrant's photographs are so riveting by going inside his most controversial one.

It's a photograph made in the Central Park Zoo.

That's photographer Todd Pappapagorge.

He's talking about a picture taken by Gary Winogrand.

What we see in filling the frame pretty much are a couple, an attractive blonde woman

and an equally attractive black man and they're very well dressed

each one is holding in her or his arms a chimpanzee dressed to the nines with little shoes on and so forth

the notion of a child is that idea that the chimpanzees or their children is provoked.

And that Susan Kismarik, she was a longtime phototer at the Museum of Modern Art.

There is a little boy in a 60s sort of proper Sunday.

You know, he's got a little cap on, a little nice formal coat, and he's in profile.

...