Margaret Bourke-White
American, 1904-1971
At the Lathe: “Hammer and Sickle” Factory: Moscow, photographed 1931; printed 1934
Photogravure on paper, 12 3/4 x 8 7/8 inches
Gift of Mrs. Frances McClure
2013.73.l
Margaret Bourke-White wrote in her book Eyes on Russia, that photographing Russian workers differed from capturing their American counterparts. As the first Western photographer permitted to photograph Russia during Joseph Stalin’s regime, her photos shed light on people and places rarely seen by outsiders. “The Russians seemed to understand instinctively that I was composing a picture. With a natural eye to pictorial effect they seemed to comprehend that every detail was important in the building up of an artistic whole.” Perhaps inspired by her Cleveland, Ohio, steel mill photos (1928), her Russian images confirm an interest in the laborer. She carried forward this industrial theme as attested by her photo of the Fort Peck Dam in Montana used on the first ever cover of Life Magazine (1936).