91
●
BOURKE-WHITE, MARGARET (1904-1971)
“Union Station Tower, Cleveland.” Silver print, 13x7
3
/
4
inches (33x20 cm.), on a period board
measuring 14x9 inches (35.6x22.9 cm.), with cropping notations, in pencil, on mount recto and
date hand stamps, labels (including one with Bourke-White’s typed credit and the caption), and
additional numeric notations, in pencil, on mount verso. 1933
[12,000/18,000]
Formerly in the Collection of National Geographic; to a Private American Collector.
Margaret Bourke-White began her career, in Cleveland, with a soft-focus Pictorialist approach that
gradually transformed into her signature, crisp modernist style. Drawn to skyscrapers, she made her first
photograph of the Terminal Tower in 1927. By the end of the year, she was designated official
photographer for Daniel Burnham’s City Beautiful project, chronicling Cleveland’s architectural icon
from different vantage points.
This photograph, which is featured in Margaret Bourke-White, Photographer of Design 1927-1936, depicts
the soaring structure with a unique overlaid iron design element that alludes to the city’s industrial heritage.
Signage advertising the Hotel Cleveland appears in the background, behind the tower’s solid rectilinear forms.
With this image, Bourke-White’s oeuvre assumes a new level of sophistication that underscored her
reputation as the photographer of the Machine Age. Subsequently, her work was featured in the inaugural
issue of Life magazine, as well as Fortune, and National Geographic.
This image appears on the front cover of Margaret Bourke-White:The Photography of Design, 1927-1936.
