About
Fortune magazine photographer Margaret Bourke-White often managed to garner attention for herself as much as for her work. Her Russia portfolio, excerpted here, was no exception, primarily because she was the first outside photojournalist allowed into the Soviet Union during the first Five Year Plan (1928–1932). Over three consecutive trips, she produced images of factories and other infrastructure projects that had been kept secret. To get these pictures, she convinced a series of Soviet bureaucrats that she could help the country gain international recognition for their achievements through her photographs.
Prior to her first trip she had heard about the great privations the people were enduring and she travelled with a trunk of canned food. Everywhere she went, the construction was awe-inspiring, but the plight of the workers was hard to ignore. In 1930, she described the situation cryptically, “Little food; No shoes; Terrible inefficiency; Steady progress; Great hope.” On her subsequent visits, she moved beyond the machine-age subjects that had defined her career and began to focus on Russian people’s lives. The twelve photogravures featured here are part of the special portfolio she published in 1934 with Argus press.
This exhibition is organized by the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, and generously supported by the Marie-Louise and Samuel R. Rosenthal Fund.
Exhibition Curator
John R. Stomberg Ph.D