We sometimes speak of an exogenous artist as coming from such-and-such a tradition. Sylvia Plachy did not so much come from the Eastern European tradition of photography as she was torn from it. In 1955, when she was 13 years old, her parents fled with her from their native Hungary and its aborted revolution: She left with nothing but a small suitcase and a Teddy bear.

They came to America, and in 1963 she became a citizen, so Ms. Plachy’s history is far happier than the stories of friends and relatives who spent the next 35 years behind the Iron Curtain. But she grew up with a nostalgia for her lost homeland. When it became possible she returned to Eastern Europe to photograph, and now Aperture books has published the record of her trips as “Self Portrait with Cows Going Home.” A selection of pictures from it is on display at the Hunter Fox Gallery.

The book contains text, drawings by her artistic father, pictures of her by family friend Andre Kertesz, other memorabilia, and far more pictures than the exhibition, but those in the show convey the same sense of longing and inquiry – and sadness. Eastern Europe is a section of the globe at the crossroads of several empires and ethnic blocs, and the traffic back and forth has not made for a lot of happiness. The seven pictures in the entrance room of the gallery were almost all shot on overcast days, and the gray skies seem emblematic. Nonetheless Ms. Plachy found much in these landscapes without shadows that interested her.

“Fate” (Hungary, 1996), is a panoramic color shot of great simplicity. In the right foreground, leading into the picture are two brown horses; the picture must have been taken from a wagon they are hauling, because we are looking over their backs and heads at the path ahead. The path is two ruts through an intensely green, waterlogged, marshy expanse that extends to the curved horizon. The sky is a monochromatic gray and the only other color is that of a small red flag attached to a little pole on the wagon. I am not aware of any specific event the title refers to, but the image itself could date from almost any time since horses have been domesticated. These horses have been pulling their load across this Hungarian marsh for eons, and no end is in sight.

The other color panorama in this group is also quite simple. “Transylvanian Woods” (2001) is a picture of an expanse of smallish trees. They are leafless, so it is fall or winter, and they are far enough apart that the fog that has descended on the woods is evident everywhere as a backdrop. The palette is quite muted. It might just be a lovely picture of nature, but because it is the Balkans the fog is as menacing as it is decorative. If you are aware of the successive tribes that have come through the Transylvania woods to trouble the inhabitants already in place, and the survival into the present of bits and pieces of pagan culture, the fog-bound woods are not innocent. There is a historical resonance that similar woods in New Hampshire would not bear.

Most of the pictures in the exhibition are black-and-white, including a full-length portrait of Ms. Plachy’s son, “Adrien Brody on the set of ‘The Pianist'” (Warsaw, 2001). He is backlit, natty in the period clothes that were his wardrobe for the Nazi-era film, dutifully posing for his mom and trying to smile although his eyes show this takes an effort. There are several ironies in Ms. Plachy’s returning to Eastern Europe to see her son in the make-believe role of a Jew in hiding: her own mother was Jewish and survived the war because her gentile father was able to hide her. Ms. Plachy, born in 1953, was not aware of her Jewish background when she was growing up, but several of the pictures, for instance “Old Jewish Cemetery” (Prague, 1985), testify to her present involvement with her maternal heritage.

Andre Kertesz was Sylvia Plachy’s mentor, and some pictures reflect this. She took pictures in places in Hungary like Budapest and Esztergom, where he had worked. She shot rural scenes like “Goose Step” (Hungary, 1993), close in feeling to pictures he had taken of the same countryside before World War II. They share a subtle visual sophistication, which can imbue simple pictures with quiet passion; a sly wit as in “One goose to sell” (Esztergom, Hungary, 1998); an appreciation for the surreal, “Questions” (East Berlin, 1990). Since they are both aware of the awful things history can do to one’s life, they cherish the good things – however small – when they find them.

Kertesz did a sweet little book of people reading. Ms. Plachy’s “Steffi and Phillip” (East Berlin, 1990) makes the most of a small instance. From the foreground to the middle of the picture is a dinner table: the plates and glasses and serving pieces are out of focus, but we see there is a small vase with a simple flower, a try for elegance. A man’s face on the left is too blurred to carry much weight. But the young couple to the right in back of the table is the true subject. The man leans towards the woman, and she is laughing, her head thrown back and on her face a wonderful smile, the smile of a woman able to delight fully in her moment. Was such a smile possible in East Berlin before the Wall came down?

Oh, yes, the title. The last picture in the book is a black-and-white panoramic shot with Ms. Plachy on the left, reflected in the side-view mirror as she leans out the window of a car to take a picture. The car is in a village and a cowherd is encouraging some cows to move along. Hence, “Self Portrait with Cows Going Home.” In a way, all the pictures in the book and in this exhibition are self-portraits of a woman determined to find her own way home.

Until February 26 (35 E. 67th Street, between Madison and Park Avenues, 212-288-3535).