Margaret Bourke-White
Margaret Bourke-White was a pioneering photojournalist whose insightful pictures of 1930s Russia, German industry, and the impact of the Depression and drought in the American midwest established her reputation. She took some of the first photographs inside German concentration camps at Erla and Buchenwald following the end of World War II and captured the last pictures of Mahatma Gandhi, in India.
Bourke-White entered Columbia University in 1921 to study herpetology; however, the following year a photography course taught by Clarence H. White at the Clarence H. White School of Photography left a lasting impression. For the course Bourke-White received her first camera, a secondhand 3 ¼ x 4 ¼ inch ICA Reflex with a cracked lens, taking her first photographs on glass plates. Though she continued to study zoology at the University of Michigan, from then on she never left the darkroom. In 1927 she graduated from Cornell University with a degree in biology, but she spent most of her time establishing herself as a professional photographer. Bourke-White opened her first studio in her apartment in Cleveland, Ohio. With photographs of architecture and industry, she earned commissions and caught the eye of Henry Luce, founder of Time and Fortune magazines, who, in 1929, invited her to become Fortune’s first staff photographer. She returned to New York and, in 1930, established a photographic studio in the Chrysler Building. When Luce launched Life magazine in 1936, Bourke-White joined the staff, and her picture Fort Peck Dam, Montana appeared on the first cover.
Introduction by Mitra Abbaspour, Associate Curator, Department of Photography, 2014
- Introduction
- Margaret Bourke-White (; June 14, 1904 – August 27, 1971) was an American photographer and documentary photographer. She is best known as the first foreign photographer permitted to take pictures of Soviet industry under the Soviet's five-year plan, the first American female war photojournalist, and having one of her photographs (the construction of Fort Peck Dam) on the cover of the first issue of Life magazine. She died of Parkinson's disease about eighteen years after developing symptoms.
- Wikidata
- Q238364
- Introduction
- Born 14 June 1904; died 27 August 1971. Photojournalist for Time, Fortune, and Life magazines. American photographer.
- Nationality
- American
- Gender
- Female
- Roles
- Artist, Photojournalist, Photographer
- Names
- Margaret Bourke-White, Margaret Bourke-White Caldwell, Margaret White, Margaret Bourke White, Margaret Bourke- White, Margaret née White
- Ulan
- 500023145
Exhibitions
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510: A Modern Media World
Ongoing
MoMA
Collection gallery
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520: Picturing America
Ongoing
MoMA
Collection gallery
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The Shape of Things: Photographs from Robert B. Menschel
Oct 29, 2016–May 7, 2017
MoMA
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One-Way Ticket: Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series and Other Visions of the Great Movement North
Apr 3–Sep 7, 2015
MoMA
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Modern Photographs from the Thomas Walther Collection,
1909–1949 Dec 13, 2014–Apr 19, 2015
MoMA
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Margaret Bourke-White has
29 exhibitionsonline.
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Margaret Bourke-White The Towering Smokestacks of the Otis Steel Co., Cleveland 1927-28
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Margaret Bourke-White Untitled 1929
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Margaret Bourke-White Garden of Mrs. F. F. Prentis, Cleveland 1920s
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Margaret Bourke-White A Generator Shell, Dnieperstroi 1930
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Margaret Bourke-White Iron Puddler, Red October Rolling Mills, Stalingrad 1930
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Margaret Bourke-White Brekekekèx-koàx-koáx 1930
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Margaret Bourke-White Untitled February 1931
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Margaret Bourke-White Chrysler Corporation 1932
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Margaret Bourke-White Cleveland Terminal Tower c. 1928
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Margaret Bourke-White From The Terminal Tower, Cleveland c. 1928
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Margaret Bourke-White Coke Pile at Aluminum Reduction Works, Aluminum Co. of America 1934
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Margaret Bourke-White New York Skyline 1934
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Margaret Bourke-White Ornamental Gargoyle, Chrysler Building 1934
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Margaret Bourke-White Brazilian Clipper c. 1930
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Margaret Bourke-White Col. Hugh L. Cooper: (Chief Consulting Engineer at Dnieprostroi) 1935
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Margaret Bourke-White The World's Largest Blast Furnace Magnitogorsk: Ural Mountains 1935
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Margaret Bourke-White Steel Worker: Magnitogorsk 1935
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Margaret Bourke-White For the Iron Mine Foundations: Magnet Mountain 1935
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Margaret Bourke-White Soviet Serenade 1935
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Margaret Bourke-White A Priest 1935
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Margaret Bourke-White Tovarisch Mikhail: Bricklayer 1935
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Margaret Bourke-White Shock Brigadier 1935
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Margaret Bourke-White At the Lathe "Hammer and Sickle" Factory: Moscow 1935
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Margaret Bourke-White Street Car Conductor: Moscow 1935
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Margaret Bourke-White Chain Belt Movement: Machine Dance Moscow Ballet School 1935
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Margaret Bourke-White Ekaterina Dzhugashvili: Mother of Joseph Stalin 1935
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Margaret Bourke-White Stalin's Great Aunt 1935
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Margaret Bourke-White Waiting the Turn: Children's Clinic: Moscow 1935
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Margaret Bourke-White Village School, Kolomna: Volga Region 1935
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Margaret Bourke-White Borscht 1935
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Margaret Bourke-White Medical Students: Tiflis 1935
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Margaret Bourke-White Semionova: Premiére Ballerina, Great Theatre: Moscow 1935
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Margaret Bourke-White At the Circus 1935
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Margaret Bourke-White Bolshevic Babies in the Nursery: Amo Automobile Factory 1935
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Margaret Bourke-White On the Edge of Asia, Village of Magnetnaya: Urals 1935
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Margaret Bourke-White Kremlin: Moscow 1935
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Margaret Bourke-White Mtskhet in the Caucasus: Ancient Capital of Georgia 1935
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Margaret Bourke-White The Steppe: Ukraine 1935
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Margaret Bourke-White Sierra Madre Mountains, California 1935
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Margaret Bourke-White Electric Furnace, Ludlum Steel Co., Dunkirk, New York c. 1930
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Margaret Bourke-White Blast Furnaces, Ford Motor Company c. 1930
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Margaret Bourke-White Fort Peck Dam, Montana 1936
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Margaret Bourke-White Elbow Creek, Arkansas 1936
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Margaret Bourke-White Clinton, Louisiana 1936
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Margaret Bourke-White Lansdale, Arkansas 1936
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Margaret Bourke-White College Grove, Tennessee 1936
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Margaret Bourke-White East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana 1936
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Margaret Bourke-White Maiden Lane, Georgia 1936
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