When Color Was Vulgar: Paul Outerbridge’s Avant-Gardist’s Eye

History can be an unreliable narrator. Paul Outerbridge was once a major force in photography, straddling the worlds of commerce and art. He shared European assignments for Vogue with Edward Steichen, and in 1929 became the second photographer to have his work acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But he died in obscurity in 1958, at the age of sixty-one. In 2009, the Getty Musuem reintroduced Outerbridge to Los Angeles with a major retrospective. Now a fine show at the Bruce Silverstein Gallery gives New Yorkers a turn.