The Photographers’ Gallery first opened its doors on 14 January 1971 presenting The Concerned Photographer, curated by photographer Cornell Capa, and first shown in New York in 1967. This exhibition included work by Robert Capa, Werner Bischof, Chim, Andre Kertesz, Leonard Freed and Dan Weiner, alongside Cornell Capa's own photographs. Of The Concerned Photographer, which existed as both an exhibition and a book published in 1968, Cornell Capa wrote:
The Concerned Photographer finds much in the present unacceptable which he tries to alter. Our goal is simply to let the world also know why it is unacceptable.