Pittsburgh 1950 brings together a series of previously unpublished early photographs made by Elliott Erwitt in the Pennsylvania steel city. In 1950, at the very start of his career and not yet twenty-two, Erwitt was hired by Roy Stryker—the legendary head of the Farm Security Administration photography programme—to take part in an ambitious documentary project recording the city of Pittsburgh. Over several months Erwitt produced thousands of negatives, the majority of which remained unseen for decades. The photographs capture a post-war industrial city in transition: its steel mills and smoke-filled skies, its streets, workers and everyday inhabitants. Made at the threshold of one of the great photographic careers of the twentieth century, the images already display the empathy, formal intelligence and quiet wit that would become Erwitt's hallmarks, while also standing as a vivid social document of mid-century American urban life.