O. WINSTON LINK (1914-2001), HAWKSBILL CREEK SWIMMING HOLE, LURAY, VIRGINIA, 1956 gelatin silver print;16 x 20 in. (sheet size); signed: stamped and signed, dated verso. Condition: Excellent. OWL-0033

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O. WINSTON LINK

O. Winston Link is best known for his documentation of the last days of the steam engine train - the Norfolk & Western Railway - between 1955 - 1960. Link was born on December 16, 1914, in Brooklyn. As a teenager, he built his own photographic enlarger and went to work for a local photo store. He attended the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, majoring in civil engineering. Upon graduation, he was hired to work as a photographer by a public relations firm, Carl Byoir Associates, from 1937 to 1942. He never pursued a career in engineering. With the onset of World War II, Link went to work for Columbia Institute Laboratory in Mineola, Long Island, where he performed secret war research for the U.S. Government. The Long Island Railroad operated tracks right behind the lab. Link had always been fascinated by steam locomotives, and the proximity of the LIRR rekindled his interest. He later built his own flash equipment required for his large scale railroad photos which he preferred to shoot at night.

After the war, he became a freelance professional photographer. He soon became known for his skillful images of complicated factory and industrial interiors. In 1955, Link traveled to Staunton, Virginia, to do an industrial shoot. He knew that the Norfolk & Western Railway passed in nearby Waynesboro and that it was the last large steam-powered American railroad. Link went to observe it. Granted permission to access the tracks by R. H. Smith, President of the N & W Railroad, Link returned the night of January 21, 1955 with his equipment and began photographing the trains. In the next five years, Winston Link made twenty trips to N & W's tracks in Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina, producing 2,400 images. Most of the images were produced on 4 x 5 film with a Graphic View Camera. The last of the N & W's steam locomotives was taken out of service in May 1960, and Winston returned to New York, where he continued his work as a commercial photographer.

Link, as much historian as artist, employed his technical skills to document his subjects. He discovered shortly after starting his visual documentation of the railroad that no one was interested in photos of an old technology. However, Winston had also recorded the sounds of the steam engines and found that his high quality sound recordings were quickly gaining recognition. He released the first of six recordings, "Sounds of Steam Railroading," in 1957, years before his N & W photographs began to garner attention. It was only in 1983 that his photography began to receive recognition as works of art. That same year, Link closed his New York City studio and moved to rural South Salem, New York. Link's first collection of N & W photographs, Steam, Steel & Stars, was published in 1987, and dramatically increased recognition of his work. The Last Steam Railroad in America, published in 1995 sealed his status as America's premier photographer of steam railroading. Exhibitions of his work have been seen throughout the United States, Great Britain, Europe and Japan. In 2000, Winston Link agreed to the creation of the O. Winston Link Museum to be located in the historic Norfolk & Western Passenger Station, in Roanoke, Virginia. The station was restored and refurbished by famed industrial designer, Raymond Loewy, and the museum opened in 2004. O. Winston Link died of a heart attack on January 30, 2001, near his home in South Salem, New York.

Copyright O. Winston Link Museum

Excellent