Midyear Assisgnment
Exhibit 1 Lewis Hine
My thoughts on the exhibit: Lewis Hine once said: “There are two thing I wanted to do. I wanted to show things that had to be corrected and show things that had to be appreciated” The exhibit did not show anyhting that had to be appreciated; it only showed the things that had to be corrected, which was not what Hine wanted.
I did not particularly like the exhibit too much. This is because it was a very dark and negative exhibit. It mainly focused on the problems and negative side of life in New York and some other states. From the exhibit I learned how poverty stricken New York used to be. I learned about how helpless New York’s children were.
Life and work of Lewis Hine: Lewis Wickes Hine was born in OshKosh, Wisconsin. After studying sociology in college, he became a teacher in New York. As a teacher, he encouraged his students to use photography as an educational medium. After teaching for some time, Hine realized that photography could be used as a tool for social change and reform. In 1908, he left his teaching job and documented child labor for the next decade. Then in 1930 he was comissioned ot take photos of the Empire State Building. There he photographed workers in very dangerous positions. Then in 1936 he was selected as the photographer for the National Research Project, but he never finished his work there. The last years of his life were filled with strugles due to the loss of government and corporate patronage. He died on November 3, 1940.
Mechanic at Steam Pump in Electric Power House
The elements/principles of art used in the picture are:
Shape – symetrical and geographical shapes are shown in the picture. Many circles are shownin the picture.
Texture – texture can be see in the bolts and the wrench. You can visually feel the parts of the steam pump.
Movement: The illusion of movement is seen in this picture. It appears as the steam pump is moving.
In this picture, Hine is trying to portray the struggles of a man working in the electric power house. He is trying to show the effort that common person has to put in to just get by. The man in the picture also looks very tired and over worked.
Street scene, New York City
The elements/principles of art used in the picture are:
Contrast – there is high contrast present in the right and top left of the picture
Movement: the illusion of movement is given by the wagons
Form: it is in a 2d format
In this picture, Hine is trying to show a busy New York street. Here he shows how crowded a street could get. He also shows how people of every age are here; children and adult are both shown in the photograph.
Addie Card, 12 years. Spinner in North Pormal
The elements/principles of art used in the picture are:
Contrast – there is high contrast between the girl’s face and the floor.
Line – lines are shown by the shelves near the top of the picture
Emphasis – emphasis is placed on the little girl near the middle of the picture
In this picture, Hine is trying to portray the children who work to make money for their families. Hine is exposing child labor.
Exhibit 2- The Future of America: Lewis Hine’s New Deal Photographs
My thoughts on the exhibit: This part of the museum focuses on more positive pictures taken by Lewis W. Hine. This exhibit shows the talent and skill portrayed by different workers in many various fields. It also showed the benefits enjoyed by the workers of certain companies.
Work of Lewis Hine during this time: During this time, Lewis Hine was the chief photographer of National Research Project (NRP), a division of the federal government's Works Project Administration (WPA). It was founded in 1935 and its goal was to investigate
