Vignettes

As a young woman, Cherry danced with the Helen Tamiris Dance Company and in concert, and nightclubs including the La Conga and Le Bal Taberin. She was a soloist at the Roxy Theater, and danced on Broadway in Sadie Thompson and in the 1945 a revival of Showboat. After a knee injury she took a job as a darkroom technician for Underwood and Underwood where she developed printing skills. In 1946 she joined the Photo League and studied with Sid Grossman, and soon began selling her photographic essays to magazines such as Life, Look, Popular Photography, Pageant, Jubilee, Coronet, This Week, Salon Photography, Amerika, Redbook, Scope, Parade, Ebony, Sports Illustrated and Colliers. She worked with Arnold Eagle on a documentary film about the Actors Studio and its director, Lee Strasberg. She also produced and photographed a childrens film, Hello Halloween. In 2000, the Brooklyn Museum mounted a major retrospective of her work. Cherry has two books of her photographs published by powerHouse. They are Helluva Town: New York in the 1940s and 50s - 2007 - and Vivian Cherry's New York - 2010 - publishers description.