Mark Feeney: Four Photographers on Three Wheels: William Eggleston's Tricycle and Before

"Migrant Mother"

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Dorothea Lange's "Migrant Mother" is one of the most iconic pieces of photojournalism dating from the 1930s. Taken for the Farm Security Administration in 1936, the image references countless "Madonna and Child" artworks, and serves as a grim portrait of Depression-era farm life. Since the death of its primary subject (Florence Thompson) in 2002, both the photograph and Lange have come under scrutiny for exploitation of the subjects.

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2008 Pulitzer Prize
0:01:42
The 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism was awarded to Mark Feeney of The Boston Globe for his penetrating and versatile command of the visual arts, from film and photography to painting.

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"Four Saints in Three Acts"
0:03:40
"Four Saints in Three Acts" is a 1934 opera written by Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein.

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"The Steerage"
0:04:31
Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946) was a highly influential photographer working in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century. "The Steerage" marks an important turning point in his work - Stieglitz (among others) began to utilize photography's inherent strengths to create Fine Art, rather than replicate the subject matter and composition of paintings.

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"Migrant Mother"
0:04:35
Dorothea Lange's "Migrant Mother" is one of the most iconic pieces of photojournalism dating from the 1930s. Taken for the Farm Security Administration in 1936, the image references countless "Madonna and Child" artworks, and serves as a grim portrait of Depression-era farm life. Since the death of its primary subject (Florence Thompson) in 2002, both the photograph and Lange have come under scrutiny for exploitation of the subjects. http://web.archive.org/web/20020602103656/http://www.newtimes-slo.com/archives/cov_stories_2002/cov_01172002.html

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"The Americans" by Robert Frank
0:04:45
Taken between 1955 and 1956, Robert Frank's photos serve as some of the first recognized "un-sentimental" portraits of American life. The work is also noted for breaking with stylistic conventions of the time. Both the subject matter and aesthetic choices of "The Americans" became became highly influential to photographers working in the latter part of the century.

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"Memphis" or "Untitled" or "Tricycle"
0:04:54
William Eggleston is often noted as the seminal Fine Art color photographer. This image, from his 1976 show, "Color Photographs," at MOMA, illustrates the influence of Robert Frank's in Eggleston's work.

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History of the Bicycle
0:16:06
Bicycles have a long and somewhat murky history - at best, we can only speculate to their origins and inventors. We do know that ancestors of the modern bicycle ("velocipedes") came to exist around 1817, and that "safety bicycles" (predecessors of the modern bicycle) rose to popularity in the 1890s. Tricycles of various designs (for both adults and children) date back to the 1870s.

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"The Shining"
0:20:33
Directed by Stanley Kubrick, this 1980 film is a landmark in the horror genre.

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Diane Arbus
0:21:13
Diane Arbus was a highly influential photographer who rose to prominence in the 1960s. She is known for her portraits of "outsiders" (dwarves, circus freaks, etc...), and of "normal" subjects cast in a somewhat deranged light (children, society women, etc...). It is often debated whether Arbus felt empathy for her subjects, or was instead, exploiting them. Arbus committed suicide in 1971.

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Helen Levitt
0:24:18
Helen Levitt (1913-2009) was a New York-based street photographer. Levitt worked throughout the twentieth century as both a still photographer and a film editor/director. Her best known work dates from the 1930s and 40s.

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Gary Winogrand
0:26:19
Gary Winogrand (1928-1984) was a prolific photographer who rose to prominence in 1960s and 70s. Winogrand is often described as a "master" of street photography.

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Mark Feeney is the arts and photography critic for the Boston Globe and winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for criticism. His essays on visual culture range from photography to painting and film. At the Globe, he has also served as book editor and editor of the weekly section of news analysis and political commentary. His work has appeared in The New Republic, Harper's, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Scholar. His latest book, Nixon at the Movies: A Book about Belief (2004) was called "transfixing" by Vanity Fair. Feeney was the 2007 Robbins Professor of Writing at Princeton University and currently serves as a lecturer in American Studies at Brandeis University. This fall he will serve as a lecturer at Yale University.

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