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Late 20th Century "Sometimes the Electricity Fails, Virginia, 1956" Silver Gelatin Print by O. Winston Link, Framed
Highland Park, IL
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Description
provenance: acquired directly from the artist by present owners Denise & Warren Michaels Highland Park, IL
Literature: Steam Steel and …
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provenance: acquired directly from the artist by present owners Denise & Warren Michaels Highland Park, IL
Literature: Steam Steel and Stars: America's Last Steam Railroad
O. Winston Link was a pioneering American commercial photographer. Best known for his images of steam locomotives, Link is responsible for developing the equipment and techniques that allowed for some of the earliest examples of night photography. Born on December 16, 1914 in Brooklyn, NY, he went on to receive a civil engineering degree from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn in 1937. He developed several new forms of photographic equipment, notably rigging 43 flash bulbs to fire simultaneously so as to capture a steam locomotive at night. Of his preference for shooting after dark and in black and white, he once quipped: “The locomotives are black. The coal is black. The tracks are black. The night is black. So what am I going to do with color?” Today, there is an O. Winston Link Museum in Roanoke, VA dedicated to his photographs, audio files, and video works documenting the last days of steam locomotives along the Norfolk and Western Railway. He died on January 30, 2001 in Katonah, NY.
O. Winston Link was captivated by the American steam locomotive and its imminent demise, spending the late 1950s documenting its final years before the advent of diesel engine trains. His best-known work, the resulting portfolio of black-and-white photographs captures the last steam trains of the Norfolk & Western Railway line and the small Virginia towns through which they ran—an elegiac portrait of the end of an era. By photographing the trains as seen through a living room window, from the edge of a public pool, or over the tops of cars parked at a drive-in, Link effectively showed how closely interwoven these technological relics were with the landscapes and lives through which they passed. Winston helped establish the ubiquity of rail photography and pioneered the use of night photography significantly.
Winston Link was a master of making the steam locomotive part of the drama of everyday life. This image, titled by the photographer, "Sometimes the Electricity Fails," is a vignette of small town America in the years gone by, when gasoline might still be pumped by hand and steam engines powered the railroad. 16X20 , framed 25 3/4 X 28 1/2" Signed on Verso
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- Dimensions
- 26ʺW × 2ʺD × 29ʺH
- Styles
- Photorealism
- Art Subjects
- Other
- Frame Type
- Framed
- Period
- 1950s
- Country of Origin
- United States
- Item Type
- Vintage, Antique or Pre-owned
- Materials
- Black & White Photography
- Condition
- Good Condition, Original Condition Unaltered, Some Imperfections
- Color
- Black
- Condition Notes
- No imperfections No imperfections less
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Highland Park, IL
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