BOURKE WHITE MARGARET (1904 1971) Standard Oil of Ohio

Sale 2103 - Lot 49

Price Realized: $ 19,200

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 6,000 - $ 9,000

BOURKE-WHITE, MARGARET (1904-1971)
"Standard Oil of Ohio." Silver print, 8 3/4x13 inches (22x32.5 cm.), with Bourke-White's signature, in pencil, on mount recto. 1930s

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Standard Oil was founded in the late 1800's by John D. Rockefeller and other businessmen, scientists and industrialists. The company was heavily criticized for eliminating their near-by competition in Ohio and throughout the northeastern United States.

When Margaret Bourke-White moved to Cleveland in the late 1920s to pursue architectural and industrial photography, she began photographing the homes of these industrial magnates, but quickly moved on to documenting the factories and steel structures of the city itself. Like her earlier work at the Otis Steel Mill and Terminal Tower, she depicted the oil storage tanks of Standard Oil with a formal elegance previously unseen.

During the 1930s Bourke-White's photographs reveal the beauty of repetition. Here, as the light reflects off the side of the perfect horizontal lines of geometric containers, the viewer is introduced to the new industrial revolution with a sense of grace and elegance.