World-renowned photographer Jay Maisel, a 1952 graduate of the School of Art, died on August 24, 2026, at 95. Over a career spanning more than seven decades, Maisel created some of the most recognizable images in American photography and inspired generations of artists through his work and teaching.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, Maisel studied graphic design at Abraham Lincoln High School under influential teacher Leon Friend. At The Cooper Union, he studied drawing and architectural design while spending much of his free time photographing the world around him. He later earned a B.F.A. in painting at Yale University, where he studied with Bauhaus master Josef Albers. Albers’s ideas about color profoundly influenced Maisel’s photographic vision.

Maisel began his professional career in 1954 thanks to a loan from his father. His early work included photographs of New York City street life and musicians. His photograph of Miles Davis became the cover of Davis’s landmark 1959 album, Kind of Blue, one of the most celebrated images in the history of jazz photography. His work also included portraits of Marilyn Monroe and other cultural figures, as well as photographs for Sports Illustrated and the first two covers of New York magazine.

Maisel’s photography extended well beyond commercial assignments. He was fascinated by the way light, color, and gesture could transform ordinary scenes: a red traffic signal in a snowstorm; two men passing each other on a NYC handball court; street vendors’ shadow on a wall in Port au Prince, Haiti. But his black-and-white images were equally arresting, from a view of Times Square neon signs to dancers at a ballroom in Harlem.

In 1966, Maisel purchased the six-story former Germania Bank building at the Bowery and Spring Street. It became his home, studio, classroom, and collection, where he mentored generations of photographers and artists. His critiques were famously direct, often returning to a fundamental question: Why doesn’t this image move me?

His honors included Lifetime Achievement Awards from the American Society of Media Photographers and Professional Photographers of America, the International Center of Photography’s Infinity Award, and induction into the Art Directors Club Hall of Fame. The Cooper Union honored him with its 1969 President’s Citation, the 1977 Augustus Saint-Gaudens Award, and induction into the Cooper Union Alumni Association Hall of Fame in 2009.

Maisel remained committed to helping young artists find their own voices. In a 1999 article in the New York Times, he explained why he returned to Abraham Lincoln High School to work with students, reflecting on the opportunities he’d had there: “I want to do the same for these kids. There’s a wall between them and the rest of the world, and it would be nice if they didn’t have to bang their heads so hard.”