Department of English

• Friday, April 19, 2019 - 4:30pm to 6:00pm

104 Chase Auditorium, Haverford College, 370 Lancaster Ave, Haverford, PA 19041

Paul Hendrickson, senior lecturer, Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing, University of Pennsylvania, has been invited to Haverford College as a part of their Distinguished Visitors Program.

Paul Hendrickson's visit and lecture is in conjunction with the exhibition, "FSA/OWI Collection from the Library of Congress: America Photographed in Color 1939-1943" on view in the Atrium Gallery Marshall Fine Arts Center from January 25 to April 28, 2019. Hendrickson's lecture will deal with the collective meaning of the FSA/OWI file of color images in that they are the first to show America in color as a way of seeing that has become the dominant way of representing the world since the Post War years and beyond.

Mr. Hendrickson is well-versed in this area of photographic history having previously written a biography of Marion Post Wolcott, an FSA photographer published in 1992; and the Introduction for Bound for Glory published in 2004, a full scale study of the little known color photographs made by photographers for Farm Security Agency and the Office of War Information.

The Farm Security Agency and the Office of War Information (FSA/OWI) from 1939 to 1943 commissioned some of the earliest known Kodachrome color photographs made. These photographs represent an unexplored history of photography. They document American as the country emerged from an economic depression in the late 1930s and began preparations for World War ll in the 1940s. These rare and exceptional photographs were filed away and not studied until their rediscovery in the 1970s. 

Their reemergence and inclusion in the photographic cannon coincided with the emergence of color photography as an art form in the 1970s. Fifty newly restored color photographs printed from high definition digital scans made from Kodachrome originals from the Library of Congress collection are included in this exhibition. They show little seen aspects of workers and industries photographed by Marion Post Wolcott and others. The photographs document the scope and diversity of regions and people across America including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Many of these photographs are printed as paper prints for the first time as the originals exist as positive color transparencies. 

This event is sponsored by the Haverford College's Department of Fine Arts in conjunction with their Distinguished Visitors Program. 

Contact: Distinguished Visitors Program, spenn@haverford.edu

Link: https://ems-web.quaker.haverford.edu/MasterCalendar/EventDetails.aspx?Ev...