The American Way, aka Louisville Flood

Artist Margaret Bourke-White (American, 1904 - 1971)

Date1937

MediumGelatin silver print

DimensionsImage and sheet: 9 13/16 × 13 7/16 inches (24.92 × 34.13 cm)
Mount: 15 7/8 × 19 15/16 inches (40.32 × 50.64 cm)

Credit LineGift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.

Object number2005.27.2568

SignedInitialed on mount recto, lower right, in pencil: "MB-W"; Signed on mount verso, center, white label with black marker: "LIFE PHOTOGRAPHY BY / Margaret Bourke-White [signature] / PROPERTY OF TIME INCORPORATED / REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED / THE AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE".

InscribedEditioned on mount recto, lower left, in pencil: "5/200"

Markingsnone

Edition/State/Proofed. 5/200

On View

Not on view

Collections

Photography

Terms

DescriptionImage of people wearing coats standing in line in front of a billboard. The billboard image is of a white family of four (all smiling) in a car with a dog leaning out of the window.
Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Masters of 20th-Century Photography from the Hallmark Collection. Waterloo Municipal Galleries, Waterloo, IA, May 2 -June 13, 1982, no cat.

New Acquisitions to the Hallmark Photographic Collection 1980-1983. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, April 1 - May 1, 1983.

20th-Century Works from the Hallmark Photographic Collection. Cottey College, Nevada, MO, January 9 - 27, 1984, no cat.

Faces: an Exhibition from the Hallmark Photographic Collection. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, September 16 - October 21, 1984, no cat.

Illusions of Eden: Visions of the American Heartland. Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH, February 18 – April 30, 2000, Madison Art Center, Madison, WI, February 24 – May 13, 2001, no cat.

Rotation 17. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, August 6, 2014 – January 11, 2015, no cat.

American Art Deco: Designing for the People, 1918-1939, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, July 9 2022–January 8 2023, no cat.

Published References

Keith F. Davis. New Acquisitions to the Hallmark Photographic Collection, 1980-1983. Kansas City, MO: Hallmark Cards, Inc., 1983. Published in conjunction with the exhibition of the same name, shown at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 3 (repro.).

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