- Lumber Mill, Albion, California
Sheet: 7 7/16 × 9 1/2 in. (18.9 × 24.2 cm)
Explore Further
In 1932 Sonya Noskowiak was one of seven San Francisco–based
photographers, including Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, who formed Group f/64.
They advocated a pure, sharply focused style of photography that captured the beauty
of the real world—not the Pictorialists’ soft-focus imitation of painting.
Noskowiak’s
nearly abstract composition of sunlit, angled rooftops reflected the real world
in another way as well: the northern California lumber mill that once hewed the
region’s giant redwoods into millions of railroad ties for the Southern Pacific
Railway had closed in 1929 and lay idle, a melancholy casualty of the Great
Depression.
Provenance[Manfred Heiting, Malibu, California]; purchased by MFAH, 2002.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Inscribed in pencil, verso, center of sheet: 11 // 02
Cataloguing data may change with further research.
If you have questions about this work of art or the MFAH Online Collection please contact us.