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8/3/2002

An American Portrait

Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown

Color Photography from the Farm SecurityAdministration 1939-1942

An American Portrait: Color Photography from the Farm Security Administration 1939-1942 will open to the public on Saturday, March 9, 2002 at the Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA).
The exhibition, drawn from the museum¹s permanent collection, offers a selection of color photographs from the documentary project carried out for the Farm Security Administration (FSA) between 1939 and 1942. The exhibition will remain on view through September 22, 2002.

During the Depression, photographers were commissioned by the FSA to document federal assistance programs to impoverished farm families. The goal of the project was to demonstrate the ravages of the Depression and the FSA¹s effectiveness in helping these people, in order to garner public and Congressional support for continued government aid. Inherent in the FSA work is a tension between the documentary aim to capture the truth of the situation and the artistic attempt to evoke a specific reaction in the viewer.

Toward the end of the 1930s, as the country began to recover from the Depression, a few of the FSA photographers learned to integrate color into the documentary style of the black and white FSA work. This exhibition focuses on the complex work done in the new photographic medium.

An American Portrait includes the work of Marion Post Wolcott, Russell Lee, Jack Delano, and John Vachon, who were pioneers in the experimentation with color film. Although all four of these photographers were self-taught, they made the switch to the color process with remarkable ease. Since these photographers recorded on film American life during this era, their work possesses both historical and aesthetic significance.

An American Portrait is presented in honor of Tennyson Schad, Williams College Class of 1952, the founder and former director of LIGHT Gallery in New York, who was instrumental in the revival of scholarship and interest in the color photography produced by the FSA. This exhibition has been organized by Vivian Patterson, Curator of Collections.

The Williams College Museum of Art is a participating member in The Vienna Project, a collaboration among eleven arts and cultural institutions in the Berkshires.
A portion of the museum's general operating funds for this fiscal year has been provided through grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, a Federal agency that fosters innovation, leadership, and a lifetime of learning, and from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.

The Williams College Museum of Art is open Tuesday through Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, from 1 to 5 p.m. Admission is free.

Williams College Museum of Art
15 Lawrence Hall Drive, Ste 2 MA 01267
Williamstown

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