Arthur Rothstein
Skull, Badlands, South Dakota

Public Domain

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Artist Arthur Rothstein (American, 1915–1985)American, 1915–1985

CultureAmerican

Titles

Skull, Badlands, South Dakota
The bleached skull of a steer on the dry sun-baked earth of the South Dakota Badlands

DateMay 1936, printed 1981

Place depictedSouth Dakota, United States

MediumGelatin silver print

DimensionsImage: 8 15/16 × 8 3/4 in. (22.7 × 22.2 cm)
Sheet: 14 × 10 15/16 in. (35.6 × 27.8 cm)

Credit LineGift of Mr. and Mrs. George Peterkin, Jr.

Object number2011.654.6

Not on view

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Department

Photography

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionArthur Rothstein’s skull photograph became the symbol of a major Depression-era controversy that still reverberates today. The picture was taken for the Farm Security Administration, a government agency charged with assisting the agricultural communities impoverished in the Dust Bowl. The FSA photographers took thousands of photographs for distribution to national news publications, but they also made artistic and experimental pictures. Rothstein found this steer skull in South Dakota and became interested in the texture of the cracked earth against the bone, so he played with the skull in different lighting circumstances and surroundings before sending the film back to headquarters. An Associated Press picture editor extracted this image from the group, separating it from its experimental context and providing a caption that was not Rothstein’s. The widely-published photo, which had been taken in May when arroyos are frequently dry, became the icon of the increasingly severe drought which actually began a few months later. When it was discovered that there were five skull photographs, anti-Roosevelt political factions took advantage of Rothstein’s photographic intervention in an election year to foment fears about government deception. The skull was native, the drought was real, but the restaging threatened to dissolve faith in the entire operation of documentary photography. Documentary filmmaker Errol Morris’ 2011 book Believing is Seeing returned to Rothstein’s photograph to revive the debate about manipulation, reminding us that we still have not found a comfortable resolution regarding the relationships between photography, truth, and propaganda.
ProvenanceGeorge Peterkin, Jr.; given to MFAH, 2011.
Exhibition History“Made for Magazines: Iconic 20th-Century Photographs,” The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, February 9–May 4, 2014.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

lower right below image in pencil "Arthur Rothstein"

recto lower left corner an embossed stamp "h / p"

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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