Minor White

mounted to illustration board, signed on the mount, circa 1938

Collection of the photographer

Acquired by Donna Schneier, Inc., New York, from the above

Acquired by the present owner from the above, 1976

This impressive large and early print is on matte-surface paper with a slightly warm tonality. The print is essentially in excellent condition. There is very minor isolated chipping on the left and right edges, visible only upon very close examination. There is faint age-appropriate silvering in the dark areas. It is mounted to thick unbranded illustration board, which has age-darkened very slightly. The reverse of the mount is soiled somewhat. 'Front St.' (sic), and 'Through a window, Portland Oregon' has been written in unidentified hands on the reverse.
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This photograph is a rare surviving print from Minor White's earliest body of serious work.  In 1939, White was commissioned by the Oregon Art Project, which operated under the auspices of the federal Works Progress Administration, to photograph blocks of buildings with cast-iron facades on Portland's riverfront before they were demolished to make way for modern development.  This was one of White's first commercial commissions, and it offered him the opportunity to hone both his technical and aesthetic abilities.  At the time, White was a member of the Oregon Camera Club, a group whose rather conservative views toward photography did not mesh completely with White's own evolving concept of the medium.  Membership did allow him, however, access to a darkroom and the Club's library.  In its presentation, this photograph – printed on matte-surface, slightly-warm-toned paper, and mounted on a large sheet of illustration board – shows a fair degree of Camera Club influence.  White's attention to the precise detail of the buildings in this picture, however, and his novel inclusion of the rough window frame in the foreground as a compositional device, demonstrate both his visual adventurousness and sophistication.      

Surviving prints from this series are scarce.  Before leaving for service in the United States Army in 1942, White deposited most of the prints and negatives of his Portland work at the Oregon Historical Society, where they still reside.  In later years, White revisited his Portland images and incorporated a number of them into his Sequences.  Lacking the original negatives, he made copy prints of those images he did have, printing them on glossy-surface photographic paper to be consistent in their presentation with his newer work. 

Minor White authority Peter Bunnell points out that, although this print is captioned 'Front Street' on the reverse of its mount, this photograph was actually made on Southwest Pine Street in Portland, and shows the Kamm Building.  Bunnell locates early prints of the image in the Portland Public Library and the Portland Art Museum, and notes that a print is not included in the Minor White archives at Princeton University.  

White included a number of his photographs of Portland in his 1969 monograph, Mirrors Messages Manifestations, including a close variant of the photograph offered here (cf. pp. 16 – 21).