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112

MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE (American, 1904-1971) CONTOUR PLOWING, WALSH COLORADO stamped

Currency:USD Category:Everything Else / Other Start Price:NA Estimated At:4,000.00 - 6,000.00 USD
MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE (American, 1904-1971) CONTOUR PLOWING, WALSH COLORADO stamped
MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE (American, 1904-1971) CONTOUR PLOWING, WALSH COLORADO stamped "SEPT. 30 1958" and "LIFE PHOTO BY MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE" on verso vintage gelatin silver print 9 1/2 x 7 1/2 in. (24.1 x 19.1 cm) paper: 10 x 8 in. (25.4 x 20.3 cm) 1954 PROVENANCE Private Collection, NORTH AMERICA LITERATURE Sean Callahan, ed., THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE, NEW YORK, 1972, p. 184 (illustrated) Sean Callahan, MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE: PHOTOGRAPHER, Boston, 1998, p. 159 (illustrated) In 1950, Margaret Bourke-White returned to the LIFE magazine photographic staff. She began this period of her career with an aptitude for taking aerial compositions and made it clear to LIFE that this was an approach she wished to pursue upon her rehire. Bourke-White had a love for flying that extended back to her early childhood. In the 1930s, she worked on advertising campaigns for many of the major airlines. In the war, she was assigned to document the Air Force, which she accompanied on bombing raids, often with Mosquito pilots in their rickety aircraft above enemy territory. After 1950 there was rarely an assignment for which she could not contrive a reason to produce an aerial view. Her dream assignment soon came her way when she was asked to document the Strategic Air Command. She was constantly forcing her pilot to execute stunts that were blatant air violations, and she was even involved in a helicopter crash but walked away unshaken. Here, she photographs the contour plowing necessary for the farmers of the Dust Bowl region. The strength of design reminds us of her past experimentations with abstraction (please refer to Lot 15, ORGAN PIPES). The image hardly seems documentary due to its Modernist form and design. In making these aerial photographs, perhaps Bourke-White understood her failing health at this time, and was doing everything she could to defy it.
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