Apr 20, 2017 - Sale 2443

Sale 2443 - Lot 48

Price Realized: $ 7,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 7,000 - $ 10,000
ARTHUR ROTHSTEIN (1915-1985)
Dust Storm, Cimarron County, Oklahoma. Silver print, the image measuring 11 1/2x11 3/8 inches (29.2x28.9 cm.), with Rothstein's credit and title, as well as the crossed off notation "Historical," and a page number, in pencil; the notations appear in various hands, with the title "Dust Storm" apparently in Edward Steichen's hand. 1936
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Additional Details

From A Private Collector, 1970s; to the Louis K. Meisel Gallery, New York, New York.

Incredibly, Rothstein apparently made just one frame of this scene: "I was about to get into my car when I turned to wave to [Coble and his two sons]. And I looked and saw this man bending into the wind, with one of the boys in front of him and another one behind him, and great swirls of sand all around, which made the sky and the earth become one. And I said, 'What a picture this is!' and I just picked up my camera and went 'click.' One photograph, one shot, one negative." One of the most enduring photographs of the Great Depression, this image quickly became an iconic image of the era.

It is reproduced in numerous sources, including: The Depression Years, As Photographed by Arthur Rothstein (Dover Publications), p. 19; Rothstein, Arthur Rothstein: Words and Pictures (Amphoto), p. 38; Stryker and Wood, In This Proud Land: America 1935-1943, as Seen in the FSA Photographs (New York Graphic Society), p. 179; Haskell, The American Century: Art and Culture, 1900-1950 (Whitney Museum of American Art), p. 246.