MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE, Reel Spinning Rayon Yarn at the Industrial Rayon Corp. Factory, Painesville, OH, 1939, 13.25x10.125" Gelatin silver print, Printed c. 1939, Title and miscellaneous annotations inscribed in pencil on print verso; photographer's credit stamp; Time Inc. copyright stamp.

Bourke-White was a transcendent photographer, whether dealing with landscape, the human condition, industry, or material culture. Here is a thoroughly Modernist industrial close-up abstraction.

Margaret Bourke-White (1904-1971) was a pioneering figure in 20th century documentary photography and is famous for her scenes of modern industry, the Great Depression, and political and social movements in the 1920s through 1950s. Born in New York in 1904, Bourke-White attended Columbia University to study under renowned photographer Clarence White. In 1927 she moved to Cleveland, the heartland of American industry, and opened her own studio. There she documented the effects of modern industry on the land and people. In 1929 Bourke-White became the first staff photographer employed by Fortune magazine. In keeping with her groundbreaking work in the United States, Bourke-White obtained permission in 1930 to enter the Soviet Union to document industrialization under the Communist regime...When Bourke-White returned home to the United States she developed a greater sympathy for the suffering of the American worker. In 1934, on assignment for Fortune Magazine, she set off to document the effects of the Dust Bowl in Oklahoma and other Great Plains states. She created a photographic essay of the migration from this region at the height of the Great Depression and in 1936 published these images in a volume entitled You Have Seen Their Faces.

Good. Moderate wear, handling marks, crackling in the emulsion, ink marks on surface recto. Heavy edge wear.