LEWIS W HINE (1874 1940) Construction worker standing on an

Sale 2406 - Lot 76

Price Realized: $ 21,250

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

Estimate: $ 20,000 - $ 25,000

LEWIS W. HINE (1874-1940)
Construction worker standing on an I-beam pulling a rope, Empire State Building. Silver print, 7 1/2x6 1/2 inches (19.1x16.5 cm.), with a partial Hine Interpretive Photography hand stamp on verso. Circa 1931

Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details

An extraordinary bird's-eye-view of Manhattan from the 102-story high Empire State Building, "the eighth wonder of the world."

At the mature age of 56, Lewis Wickes Hine was hired by his neighbor, Richard Shreve, a partner in the architectural firm of Shreve, Lamb and Harmon, who designed the Empire State Building, to photograph its construction. The public's initial response to the project, which was initiated by Governor Alfred E. Smith during the Great Depression, was to deem it a folly. Nonetheless, construction began on St. Patrick's Day (1930) and was completed a mere 13 months later. The building was officially opened on May 1, 1931 in a dramatic fashion, when President Hoover turned on the building's lights from Washington, DC, with the push of a button.

Hine's pictures, which were shot from high beams at elevations high above the city, merge his interest in a Work Portrait methodology (focusing on Mohawk Indian iron workers and other laborers perched on I-beams) and modernist abstraction. He pictures the building as a towering structure, a symbol of New York's bold ambition and modernity.