Ormond Gigli Poster, Girls in the Windows New York City 1960 Photography Print

This Ormond Gigli poster reproduces one of the most audacious single-day productions in the history of photography — Girls in the Windows, New York City, 1960. Gigli arranged 43 models across the facade of a condemned townhouse on East 58th Street the day before it was demolished, each woman framed in a window, each window its own vignette inside the larger architectural grid. The Ormond Gigli poster delivers the full sweep of that composition — a building transformed into a living display board, simultaneously documentary and surreal, fashion and fine art.

The story behind the image is almost as compelling as the image itself. Gigli noticed the empty building from his studio window, got permission from the demolition company for a single afternoon, recruited the models, sourced the dresses, and shot the entire thing in a few hours. The next day, the building was gone. What he captured is the only record of it in this form — 43 women in 43 windows, the Manhattan streetscape reflected below, a moment of completely orchestrated spontaneity.

What Makes This Ormond Gigli Poster a Genuinely Rare Wall Image

• Design & vibe: The color version of this Ormond Gigli photography print is immediately striking — each model wears a differently colored dress, so the building facade reads as a grid of saturated color blocks against the grey New York stone. The geometric regularity of the window grid versus the organic variety of poses and expressions creates a tension that rewards close looking. This is not a photograph you absorb in a glance. Every window is a separate story inside the larger composition.
• Print quality: Printed on 200 GSM museum-grade matte paper with fade-resistant archival inks. Rich blacks, accurate colors, sharp with or without glass.
• Sizes: Seven sizes from 9×11″ to 24×36″, all standard frame-ready. Digital download also available at $3.90 (300 DPI, PDF/JPG).
• Great gift for: Photography collectors, fashion history fans, New York City enthusiasts, and anyone who appreciates a great image that took exactly one afternoon to make and has never been replicated. This Ormond Gigli poster is a conversation piece in the most literal sense.

This Ormond Gigli photography print benefits substantially from larger print sizes. At 9×11″, the individual figures in the windows are small; at 18×24″ or 24×36″, you begin to see the faces, the fabric detail, the individual expression in each window. The full complexity of the composition only reveals itself at scale. If you’re going to put this on a wall, go as large as the wall allows.

Gigli spent most of his career as a commercial photographer — advertising, fashion, editorial — and Girls in the Windows was shot as a personal project with no client and no brief. It circulated within the industry for years before wider recognition came in the 1980s and 1990s. By then it had already become one of those images that everyone recognizes even if they don’t know who made it. It’s in that rare category of photographs that have entered visual culture completely independently of their maker’s biography.

As a wall piece, the Ormond Gigli photography print occupies a unique position: it’s colorful enough to work in spaces that resist monochrome photography, structured enough to suit rooms with strong architectural geometry, and narrative enough to reward the sustained attention that really good wall art demands. It also carries a specific New York energy — mid-century, optimistic, slightly theatrical — that makes it an especially strong fit for urban apartments and contemporary loft spaces.

Where to Hang This Ormond Gigli Photography Print

The colorful grid composition and strong vertical-horizontal structure make this Ormond Gigli poster ideal for a living room, entryway, or open-plan space where the scale of the image can register fully. The warm dress colors — reds, yellows, pinks, blues — work against neutral walls especially well. In a New York apartment, this Ormond Gigli photography print is essentially home territory. In any urban space, it hits the same way: specific, slightly cinematic, and completely self-assured.

More from MerchFuse

Explore the full range of fine art photography prints in our collection, or see the Melvin Sokolsky bubble series fashion photography poster for another landmark 1960s image where fashion and spectacle collide.

Print & Material Details

Every MerchFuse poster is printed on 200 GSM museum-grade matte paper using fade-resistant archival inks. Colors stay true, blacks stay deep, and the matte finish eliminates glare whether you frame under glass or mount open. All seven sizes use standard frame dimensions — no custom framing needed.

Prefer to print your own? The digital download option gives you a 300 DPI high-resolution file (PDF/JPG) for $3.90.

This is fan-inspired artwork and an original artistic interpretation. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or officially licensed by any studio, production company, label, artist, photographer, or rights holder.