It is primarily through the documentary photographs of the FSA that this period of mass unemployment and social deprivation has been preserved in our visual memory. It produced numerous ‘iconic images’ created by photographers such as Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstein, Marion Post Wolcott, Walker Evans and Russell Lee. ‘The Bitter Years’ was the title of the last exhibition curated by Edward Steichen in 1962 as director of the photography department at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. Under the same title, the Margulies Collection organised a travelling exhibition in 2023 featuring photographs from its collection. An entire chapter of this auction is devoted to FSA photography (lots 547-565). For Martin Z. Margulies, the essence of relevant photography has always been the aspect of the ‘conditio humana’. This also determines his view of other photographic approaches of the 20th and 21st centuries. For example, the group of photographers being part of the ‘New Topographic Movement’, who focused on the social and architectural living environment in suburban areas of the USA. Notable examples include Robert Adams (lots 673-676), Stephen Shore (lots 700-703), William Eggleston (lots 698/699) and Henry Wessel (lots 660-664). Numerous multi-part groups of works in the Margulies Collection are devoted to the theme of living, such as Olafur Eliasson‘s ‘Hut Series’ (lot 722), Henry Wessel‘s ‘Real Estate Photographs’ (lot 697) and Peter Bialobrzeski‘s ‘Case Study Homes, Manila’ (lot 724). “I found that with photography, I like to collect multiple works in a series or an entire portfolio by a photographer”, so Margulies. The photographs of Alec Soth (lots 713-718), six masterpieces of which are featured in the auction, are enriched with poetic narrative moments. With deep respect for his subjects, South African portrait and documentary photographer Pieter Hugo focuses on marginalised social groups such as the ‘hyena men’ in Nigeria or waste collectors in Ghana in his carefully composed and staged portraits (lots 727/728). Last but not least, the collection includes works by Justine Kurland (lots 719/720) and Barbara Probst (lot 734), a series of photographic works that deal among other things with gender-specific perspectives. The photographs from the Margulies Collection are marked with an in this catalogue. Ausstellung/Exhibition „The Bitter Years. 1930-1940“. The Margulies Collection at the Warehouse © Jeanie Ambrosio
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