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Photographer I Love: Margaret Burke-White
Click on the following Learn More links to read about Margaret Burke-White:
| Precedents, Fortune, and Life |
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Margaret Burke-White set precedents, as she was the first photographer for Fortune magazine and the first woman photographer for Life Magazine.
She provided Life Magazine's first cover picture and first photo essay, that of the construction of Fort Peck Dam in 1936 (Margaret Bourke-White 236).
She traveled the world over photographing such events as the German blitzkrieg over Moscow, and such persons as Stalin and Gandhi. She was well-known for her commercial photography, including her work on Russian industry and the South African diamond mines.
She was admired for her bravery and teased for her love of nature, often bringing her critters with her to work. Her favorite picture of herself was of her suited up in a flight suit with her heavy camera after she flew on an airplane to photograph an Allied bombing run.
| "The Forgotten Front" |
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During World War II, she covered the Italian front, what she called "The Forgotten Front."
At that time, the Germans remained to fight the Allies, who were attempting to take Rome from Naples on the road that wound through Cassino, Italy. The terrain consisted of jagged mountains and a deep river valley. Allied troops suffered great casualties and morale was low.
They called it "Purple Heart Valley" (Vicki Goldberg 279).
Her experience there drastically effected her, so much so she returned to cover Italy a second time. She also wrote a book titled Purple Heart Valley. Unfortunately, her most gripping photographs were either lost or stolen, which she felt a great waste to the emotions, pain, and suffering she witnessed there.
| "Ties of Great Affection" |
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In Italy, Margaret began to listen as she did seeing:
The very intimacy of the Italian conflict sharpened my awareness of human beings around me, and I began to listen to what people said. I mean really listen. Someone drops a phrase and you say to yourself, 'No one else could have said just that thing in just that way. It is like a portrait of the man.' Until then, I had considered myself eye-minded and let it go at that, but much as I love cameras, they can't do everything.
~Bourke-White 234, emphasis mine
To Margaret, her life was her work, and the relationships she encountered with others mattered to her. Of the people she met with each photographic story she wrote, "The lasting quality of some of these friendships had been a source of great happiness to me. Long after the job which brought us together is over, we are bound by ties of great affection" (Goldberg 281, emphasis mine).
| Parkinson's Disease |
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She was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease in 1951, and endured it for 20 years. She approached her illness with the same tenacity with which she approached her photography. She was happy to load her camera again after she underwent an experimental procedure, which temporarily relieved her symptoms.
In 1960, national television aired The Margaret Bourke-White Story, with Teresa Wright as Maragaret, which publicized her operation and her battle with Parkinson's.
She viewed her suffering without regret, noting that it brought her closer to others, this feeling a change from her perception that photographers, herself included, tended to be "brusque and unfeeling" in order to complete their assignments (Goldberg 357).
She died in 1971 of complications due to Parkinson's.
| Lasting Legacy |
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Her lasting legacy to photography has been the precedents she set:
- the first woman still photographer for Life Magazine
- establishing commercial photography as a viable field in photography
- her contribution to photojournalism with the thousands upon thousands of photographs she took
- her gift to history by recording nationally and internationally significant events and persons
- and the quality of the photographs which she took.
Her daring and persistent personality motivated her to pursue her dreams, these tempered by her growing compassion for the difficult life experiences she experienced and observed in others.
My favorite picture of Margaret Burke-White is of her perched outside of her studio on the eagle of the Chrysler building, and I recall vividly her photograph of an American soldier undergoing surgery in a field hospital on the Italian front during World War II.
| Source List |
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Visit your local library or book retailer to learn more. With gratitude, my sources are as follows:
Bourke-White, Margaret. Portrait of Myself. New York: Simon and Schuster, Inc. c. 1963.
Callahan, Sean, Ed. The Photographs of Margaret Bourke-White. Greenwich, Connecticut: New York Graphic Society Ltd. c. 1972 Estate of Margaret Bourke-White. c. 1972 Time Inc.
Goldberg, Vicki. Margaret Bourke-White: A Biography. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. c. 1986.
Keller, Emily. Margaret Bourke-White: A Photographer's Life. Minneapolis: Lerner Publications Company. c. 1996.
Images courtesy of Lakewood Public Library and photo-seminars.com. To view Margaret-Bourke White images and self-portraits, go to:
Visit The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) for information on the 1989 televised movie Double Exposure about Margaret Bourke-White:
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