Share

Friday, September 3, 2010

Chicagoland / Visual Art The Chicago Rail Photographs of Jack Delano

Posted by Whet Moser on 09.03.10 at 04:51 PM

Jack Delano
  • Jack Delano
One of the more remarkable aspects of the Farm Security Administration-Office of War Information was its employment of a team of great photographers, which included now-legendary names like Gordon Parks, Dorothea Lange, and Ben Shahn, under the helm of economist/photographer Roy Stryker. One of the less-well-known documentarians was Jack Delano, born Jacob Ovcharov in what's now Azerbaijan. Delano trained as a painter, and was also a composer, being one of the first to work with electroacoustic music, shortly after Pierre Schaeffer began experimenting with the form.

While working for the FSA, Delano took a set of remarkable color photos of Chicago rail yards:

1a34595v.jpg

1a34599v.jpg

1a34602v.jpg

1a34626v.jpg

1a34637v.jpg

1a34650v.jpg

1a34655v.jpg

1a34668v.jpg

1a34669v.jpg

1a34672v.jpg

1a34673v.jpg

1a34674v.jpg

1a34678v.jpg

1a34681v.jpg

1a34788v.jpg

1a34789v.jpg

1a34791v.jpg

1a34795v.jpg

Images via the Library of Congress.

Tags: , , , , , ,

Comments (6)

Showing 1-6 of 6

Add a comment

At least one of the color photos Jack Delano shot was of the grandfather of Gary Sinise, a brakeman for the Indiana Harbor Belt RR. He took a number of black and white photos of the elder Sinise in the Blue Island rail yards; then went home and took photos of the family that include Gary's dad, uncle and grandmother.

report   
Posted by Rich Samuels on 09/03/2010 at 6:20 PM

The FSA was one of the best things the US ever did, imo. So much quality art - artists need to eat too. There’s a huge collection of Library of Congress photographs in The Commons at Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_co…

report   
Posted by swanksalot on 09/03/2010 at 6:22 PM

Whet--do you happen to know when these were shot?

report   
Posted by Emily Withrow on 09/07/2010 at 11:08 AM

Wow. These pictures are some of the best color images I have seen. The quality and lighting, particularly in the portraits while contrasted against black, is so perfect it looks like they could have been taken yesterday. Thanks for sharing.

report   
Posted by jeffrey harley on 09/07/2010 at 2:39 PM

Back in July, Emily, the Denver Post ran some of these photos. Go to this link here for some info on each of the photos, including names, dates, etc.: http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2010/07/26/captured-america-in-color-from-1939-1943/2363/

report   
Posted by Ashwin Srinivasan on 09/07/2010 at 9:04 PM

Glad to see more of these amazing pieces of Delano's work. He brought the B&W use of shadow/light contrast to color - and had just the right technique to get perfect contrast with the newly-introduced color film. He'll be inspiring photographers for centuries to come.

report   
Posted by Dave Leucinger on 09/08/2010 at 12:15 AM
Subscribe to this thread:
By Email
With RSS
Showing 1-6 of 6

Add a comment

Tabbed Event Search

The Bleader Archive

Recent Comments