Arthur Rothstein
1936
'Fleeing a dust storm'. Farmer Arthur Coble and sons walking in the face of a dust storm, Cimmaron County, Oklahoma

Gelatin silver print, mounted to board
10 1/2 x 14
 
Silverstein Photography
In an oral history interview with Arthur Rothstein by Richard Doud (25 May 1964) for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution the following comments were made.
 
Arthur Rothstein:
… one day, wandering around through Cimarron County in Oklahoma, which is in the panhandle of Oklahoma, I photographed this farm and the people who lived on the farm. The farmer and his two children, two little boys, were walking past a shed on their property and I took this photograph with the dust swirling all around them. I had no idea at the time that it was going to become a famous photograph, but it looked like a good picture to me and I took it. And I took a number of other pictures on the same property. And then I went on to some other farms and took those pictures. This particular picture turned out to be the picture that was quite famous. It was a picture that had a very simple kind of composition, but there was something about the swirling dust and the shed behind the farmer. What it did was the kind of thing Roy [Stryker] always talked about-it showed an individual in relation to his environment. Of course this is the sort of thing that painters from time immemorial have been trying to do-to show man in relation to his environment. You know the old axiom that " Art is the expression of man," so here, if this has any art, it's because it's an expression of man.
 
Provenance: US Camera Archive

 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS - CALL NUMBER
LC-USF34- 004052
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS - REPRODUCTION NUMBER
LC-DIG-ppmsc-00241 DLC (digital file from print)
LC-USZC4-4840 DLC (color film copy transparency from print)
LC-USZ62-11491 DLC (b&w film copy neg. from print)
 
LL/349