Exhibition Gallery Guide: Margaret Bourke-White: Photographs of U.S.S.R.

GALLERY GUIDE | AUGUST 25-DECEMBER 12, 2015

Margaret Bourke-White's Photographs of

U.S.S.R.

Margaret Bourke-White (June 14, 1904 - August 27, 1971) was a groundbreaking photographer who shattered glass ceilings and paved the way for future photojournalists. In her autobiography Portrait of Myself, she wrote, "Nothing attracts me like a closed door. I cannot let my camera rest until I have pried it open.” She was just a young girl when her father introduced her to photography. An engineer and inventor, Joseph White was responsible for imparting in his daughter a love of factories and industry.

It was not until her college years, however, that photography became a passionate endeavor that would define her career and her life.

one semester following the premature death of her father. Resuming her studies in 1922, she attended the University of Michigan where she met Everett Chapman. Their marriage lasted only two years (1924-1926). Continuing her studies, she attended several schools, including Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, eventually graduating with a BA in Zoology from Cornell University.

Inspired by her brief stint with Clarence White, she moved back to Cleveland, where she began her work in commercial and architectural photography.

Capturing the booming industry of an urban Ohio area, the stylization of Bourke-White’s pictures became distinct from the work of other photographers. Her compositions reflected a deliberate way of organizing her subjects. Material was positioned to create paralleling patterns, almost as if gridded out on the picture plane. This led the viewer to see the machinery as part of a clean, precise process.

After accepting work as the first photographer for Fortune magazine in 1929, Bourke-White began her steady climb to fame as a photojournalist. Her first photos for Fortune appeared in the February 1930 issue. Operators at the Otis Steel Company in Cleveland, Ohio, were hesitant to let a d“elicate” woman and her expensive equipment into the dirty

Above: Callahan, Sean. Oscar Graubner (American, 18971977). Margaret Bourke-White. 1934. Gelatin silver print.

Estate of Margaret Bourke-White. Margaret Bourke-White, Photographer. Boston: Bulfinch Press Book; Little, Brown and Company, 1998. p. 2.

Right: Bourke-White, Margaret. 200 ton ladle, Otis Steel Company, Cleveland, OH. 1928. Gelatin silver print.

Estate of Margaret Bourke-White. “Baumwoll Archives.” baumwollarchives.com

While studying herpetology at Columbia University in 1921, she took an elective course in commercial photography at the Clarence White School of Modern Photography. Other prominent students coming out of White’s school included Dorothea Lange, Laura Gilpin, Paul Outerbridge and Doris Ulman. Bourke-White dropped out of school after

and dangerous factory. There was also the concern of exposing trade secrets. When she finally received access, technical problems with lighting surfaced. Her camera was only sensitive to white light and was not capable of capturing the red, glowing light of the molten steel. Bourke-White resolved the issue with the use of a magnesium flare. Her determination was rewarded with some of the best photographs ever taken of a steel mill. She was soon in great demand and asked to bolster the marketing campaigns of other industrial companies.

In late 1930, Bourke-White moved to New York City where she secured a studio space in the famed Art Deco Chrysler Building. Some of her famous images of the New York City skyline were taken from atop a metal gargoyle outside her sixty-first floor studio window. Still maintaining connections with Fortune magazine, she was given many important opportunities to photograph national and international events. She was sent to Germany to document the rebuilding of industry following World War I, which contributed to her work in Russia.

Her first visit to the Soviet Union in the summer of 1930 was hard fought, facing much political red tape. The experience became so personal that she returned in the summers of 1931 and 1932.

In 1935, Fortune sent Bourke-White to the American South with Erskine Caldwell, the celebrated novelist who told the story of the southern underclass, to document the ravages of the Dust Bowl. The two eventually married in 1939, resulting in a divorce three years later. The project You Have Seen Their Faces was a dedication to the poor, rural American farmers and sharecroppers.

In one incident, Bourke-White had been taking pictures of a woman at her vanity, and rearranged the woman’s possessions to better suit her idea for a composition. She was taken aside and scolded

by Caldwell, who told her that the possessions were the right of expression for the woman who owned them. This gave her a new perspective on her role as a photographer. She transitioned from a photographer concerned with aesthetics to one concerned with revealing a truth. Published in 1937, the series of photographs was a landmark in that it combined text and photographs to carry a story.

Her photographs are now embedded in Depression era history alongside photographs by Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans and Marion Post Wolcott.

Bourke-White, Margaret. Maiden Lane, Georgia. 19351937. Gelatin silver print. Estate of Margaret BourkeWhite. “Photographing the Representative American: Margaret Bourke-White in the Depression.” xroads.virginia. edu/~class/am485_98/coe/photofrnt.html

Her adventurous spirit and superior quality of photographic images resulted in a call from Life magazine. Henry Luce wanted one of her photographs to grace the cover of the first issue, released on November 23, 1936, marking another remarkable feather in her cap. She traveled to Montana where she photographed the Fort Peck Dam, the largest earth-filled dam in the world. The construction of the dam was initiated in 1933 under the New Deal program created by the Roosevelt administration to help the United States recover from the Great Depression.

Having great affection and appreciation for Russia, she returned in 1941 with Erskine Caldwell.

They were present when German troops invaded the Soviet Union and were hastily rushed to the US Embassy in Moscow for safety. Although commanded to stay inside, the gregarious photographer set up her tripod and camera on the roof of the embassy. That night, she captured remarkable images of the bombing of Moscow.

After returning to the US for a short period, she went back to the war zone, this time accredited by the US armed forces as a war photographer.

Bourke-White became the first woman to hold this designation. Despite her celebrity, she impressed foot soldiers with her toughness. She slept in foxholes, patrolled the skies in unarmed aircraft and worked in field hospitals under artillery barrage. She took many noted photographs of General George Patton,

with whom she traveled into Germany. Following the fall of the Third Reich in 1945, she was the first to photograph the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp. She eventually came to terms with the Holocaust in her 1946 book, Dear Fatherland, Rest Quietly. Her photographs immortalized the extreme abuse of human rights with which Germany would forever be affiliated.

felt no desire to cover the Korean War. However, mentions of her past associations with socialist politics compelled her to clear her name. There would be no better way of doing so than to document America’s war against communism.

She would go on to document the untold bloody guerilla warfare between Korean forces and the communist sympathizers to the South.

With the end of the second World War, BourkeWhite turned to another political and deadly event. In 1946, she began documenting the partition of India and Pakistan from their colonial rulers. In India, she captured on film a spectrum of revolution from chaotic race riots to dignified, nonviolent protests. This would also lead to her famous interaction with the face of this revolution, Mohandas M “ ahatma” Ghandi. She visited with Gandhi one day before his assassination on January 30, 1948. During their last meeting, she interviewed Gandhi, who spoke candidly about the issues of the day, not just in India, but around the world. Because of the close relationship she developed with him, she was one of few outside of the family permitted to view the dead leader within an hour of his assassination.

It was around this time that Bourke -White started feeling the effects of what she would call her “mysterious malady.” Her limbs would periodically go lame, and her fingers would become stiff. Diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, she spent the last years of her life fighting off paralysis and finishing her 1963 best-selling autobiography, Portrait of Myself. Though she tried to hide the effects of her ailment, she was forced to retire in 1969. She died two years later.

Bourke-White’s exploits took her to other corners of the world. Life magazine sent her to South Africa in 1950 to document the harsh conservative governmental policies. The subject of apartheid was reflected in her portraits, highlighting the disparity of wealth and severe working conditions of those not in power. Two years later, Life sent Bourke-White to Japan and Korea. Initially, she

Bourke-White set a new standard for photojournalists, as her ambition and passion for social issues were unmatched. She demonstrated that women were not only capable, but could also succeed in this field. Photojournalism was a labor of love. Her photographs have become some of the most iconic images of the 20th century and secure her place as one of the world’s most important and accomplished photographers.

Acknowledgments: This exhibition is made possible through a generous gift from Frances McClure and is dedicated to the memory of Helen Ball, the first Curator of the Walter Havighurst Special Collections at Miami University. Gallery Guide co-written by Jason E. Shaiman and Kimberly Blake. Exhibition co-curated by Jason E. Shaiman and Kimberly Blake. Exhibition graphics by Meghan Canfield.

On the cover: Margaret Bourke-White. The World’s Largest Blast Furnace Magnitogorsk: Ural Mountains (detail), 1934, photographed 1931. Photogravure, number 83 of an edition of 1,000. Miami University Art Museum.

Gift of Frances McClure. 2013.73.n

Callahan, Sean. Margaret Bourke-White. Mohandas Gandhi, 1946. Gelatin silver print. 1934. Gelatin silver print.

Estate of Margaret Bourke-White. Margaret Bourke-White, Photographer. Boston: Bulfinch Press Book; Little, Brown and Company, 1998. p. 133.

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