Marion Post Wolcott, photographer.
FSA:The American Vision BY JIM JOHNSON AT 12/11/2006
One of the interesting things about the FSA photographers, as I have mentioned here several times before [1] [2] [3] [4], is the predicament they raise in their work of relating to government agencies and assignments and agendas. I admire the work of many of the photographers associated with the FSA, but the admiration is hardly unambivalent. What if their liberal-left leaning politics were different? Would I still admire the images they made? What if their politics had been more transparent? What if their politics had been more consistently leftist rather than liberal? (If only we had something like New Deal Liberalism as a live option today! And if only that liberalism had been less thoroughly anti-socialist.)
The photographs produced by the FSA during the Great Depression constitute one of Americas greatest artistic legacies. The project launched a stellar group of young photographers, including Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Ben Shahn, Carl Mydans, Arthur Rothstein, Marion Post Walcott, and Gordon Parks, who fanned out across America and created images of intense power and poetry. Thousands of FSA photographs have been exhibited and published, and we may feel that we know them well. For this remarkable volume, however, Gilles Mora and Beverly Brannan immersed themselves in the vast archive at the Library of Congress and emerged with unknown treasures. Theirs is a new view of the achievement of the FSA photographersthe most comprehensive in printthat finally gives them their due as the creators of a new American photographic vision. The photographs produced by the FSA during the Great Depression constitute one of Americas greatest artistic legacies. The project launched a stellar group of young photographers, including Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Ben Shahn, Carl Mydans, Arthur Rothstein, Marion Post Walcott, and Gordon Parks, who fanned out across America and created images of intense power and poetry. Thousands of FSA photographs have been exhibited and published, and we may feel that we know them well. For this remarkable volume, however, Gilles Mora and Beverly Brannan immersed themselves in the vast archive at the Library of Congress and emerged with unknown treasures. Theirs is a new view of the achievement of the FSA photographersthe most comprehensive in printthat finally gives them their due as the creators of a new American photographic vision.See for an interview with Roy Stryker (1972) ...
The FSA/OWI pictures depict life in the United States, including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, with a focus on rural areas and farm labor, as well as aspects of World War II mobilization, including factories, railroads, aviation training, and women working.
The original images are color transparencies ranging in size from 35 mm. to 4x5 inches. They complement the better-known black-and-white FSA/OWI photographs, made during the same period.
The Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division preserves the original photographs and offers the digital copies to ensure their wide availability.
For more information about the collection and to see the approximately 171,000 black-and-white photos, visit: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/f sac/
Roy Stryker's shooting scripts for the FSA photographers :
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