Note:  Coming across this press release from Doyle New York yesterday, I felt compelled to share it.  I first "consciously" discovered Arthur Rothstein's photographs over the last couple of years on  Tom Clark's Beyond The Pale blog, which has featured a remarkable history of the Great Depression literally seen through the lenses of the great photographers who were employed by various federal agencies during the period and charged with recording contemporary American history. 
I say "consciously"  discovered because, like many of these photographers, one couldn't grow up during the later 20th century in the United States without having seen a good deal of Rothstein's photojournalism.  I will try to attend the auction.  The prices look to be within reach of interested collectors and very modest for works of this quality and provenance.
  
Arthur Rothstein at work
NEW YORK, N.Y.- 
Doyle New York
 to auction the Arthur Rothstein Photograph Collection on Thursday, 
October 13, 2011 at 10am. The auction offers almost two thousand prints,
 vintage through 1980s, from the collection of his wife, Grace 
Rothstein. The images span Rothstein's long career as an award-winning 
photojournalist, and feature iconic Depression-era images including his 
iconic Dust storm, Cimarron County, Oklahoma; as well as photographs of 
African-Americans in the rural South, England after the Blitz, Jewish 
refugees in Shangai, and stark images of rural China.
The Tennessee Valley Authority brings power to the South, Alabama, 1942
ARTHUR ROTHSTEIN
        Arthur Rothstein was born in New York City in 1915 and became one of
 the most prolific and influential photographers of the 20th century. 
The broad scope of his work parallels that of American life from the 
Great Depression through the Reagan years, as well as international 
events from post-War famine in China to May Day in Moscow’s Red Square 
at the height of the Cold War. From Welsh coal miners to the Reichstag 
in ruins, to the unique documentation of the Jewish refugee population 
in Shanghai after World War II, it was said of Arthur Rothstein that he 
went everywhere, saw everything and brought his camera.
        The images in the Arthur Rothstein Photograph Collection range from 
the historical events that touched us all – Roosevelt meets with 
Churchill, President Kennedy’s funeral procession – to images equally 
profound, if on a smaller scale. We see, in contrast to the national 
display of mourning for President Kennedy, the devastation of an 
anonymous personal loss as a father places his emaciated son, stricken 
by famine, in a grave in rural China in the forties. Who will bear 
witness to this tragedy, the photographer seems to say rhetorically. His
 answer: Now we all will.
Night view, downtown Dallas, January 1942
          And similarly, there is the power of the iconic Dust Storm, Cimarron
 County image, widely regarded as one of the most ubiquitous images of 
the 20th century. We also see dignity in the face of the unemployed 
black man in Alabama during the Depression, adjusting his tie in the 
mirror, getting ready for Saturday night. And the regal face of a young 
girl in the window of a mud shack in Gee’s Bend. But there is a subtle 
humor as well. Arthur Rothstein was a pioneer in the use of what he 
called the “third effect”, a message that emerges when an image contains
 the wry juxtaposition of the written word. A shoe shine man in New York
 City sits under a sign quoting Disraeli on the importance of being in 
the right place when opportunity knocks. And then there is the display 
of dazzling technical expertise as pitcher Eddie Lopat delivers a 
fastball, his arm moving faster than the shutter speed. The Arthur 
Rothstein Photograph Collection is stunning in its power, scope, 
technical prowess and beauty.
         Arthur Rothstein was a gifted student, graduating from Stuyvesant 
High School and enrolling in Columbia College at age sixteen as a 
chemistry major. He developed an interest in photography from the 
technical side, working with film development techniques and eventually 
becoming a founding member of the camera club at Columbia. Upon 
graduation he was offered a job by Columbia economist Roy Stryker. 
Stryker had been asked by colleagues in the Roosevelt administration to 
form a group of documentary photographers to work within what eventually
 became known as the Farm Security Administration. In addition to Arthur
 Rothstein, the FSA photographers included Dorothea Lange, Ben Shahn, 
Walker Evans, Gordon Parks, Russell Lee, Carl Mydans, John Vachon and 
Marion Post Walcott, among others. Together they produced some of the 
defining images of the 20th century. Many of the works in this 
collection are among them.
Girlie show at carnival, Bozeman, Montana, Summer 1939
      One of the most extraordinary things about Arthur Rothstein was that
 he excelled in so many different photographic disciplines. He was not 
at all satisfied to be a documentary photographer alone, although he was
 a great one. He also excelled as a news photographer, a contract 
assignment photographer, a food photographer (often working with the 
food stylist Sylvia Schur), a commercial advertising photographer, and, 
of course, a pure visual artist, evidence of which is abundant 
throughout this collection. When asked what he felt his greatest 
strength was as a photographer, he invariably replied with one word: 
versatility.
      Arthur Rothstein served during World War II in the Army Signal Corps
 and was stationed primarily in what is now known as Myanmar, formerly 
Burma. After the war, he resumed his career at Look magazine, in the 
position of Technical Director of Photography, a title he held until 
Look ceased publication in 1970. In that capacity he continued to travel
 the world on assignment, often bringing his wife Grace, an accomplished
 portrait photographer in her own right, with him to assist. He placed 
particular emphasis on the word “technical” as it appeared in his title 
with his name on the Look masthead. This was a part of his personality 
that permeated his life: he was an extraordinarily self-assured and 
competent person and wanted to emphasize that at the core of his craft 
was a comprehensive technical knowledge. This technical emphasis, a 
vestige of his earliest interest in photography as a chemistry student 
at Columbia, never left him. He continued to explore and develop new 
photographic techniques, including the Xograph three dimensional photo 
system. Arthur Rothstein was renowned for his technical expertise, and 
film and camera manufacturers, including Leica, Hasselblad, Kodak and 
Polaroid, would often send him prototypes as a routine part of their 
R&D process. He authored numerous published books, some of which 
were compilations of his documentary and other photographs, but several 
of his books were of a purely technical nature.

 
Administering the Darrow photopolygraph test, Narcotic Farm, Kentucky 1930
        But beyond all of this expertise, or perhaps because of it, we can 
see in this collection the profound gifts of an extremely intelligent 
communicator. On a personal note, I can say unequivocally that Arthur 
Rothstein had the rare ability to speak in complete, fully formed 
paragraphs. If you asked him question, the response would start with a 
topic sentence, followed by a declarative exposition, and finally, a 
recapitulating conclusion. This, it seems, was a skill cultivated more 
in the education of people born a hundred years ago than it is today. It
 was the ability to improvise and compose simultaneously for the purpose
 of enhancing communication. We see this expressed in his craft, 
analogous to a great jazz solo: extemporaneous and visceral, but 
elegantly structured. Moments in time, fully formed.
Syringes seized from patients admitted to Narcotic Farm, Kentucky. 1930
        Throughout his life Arthur Rothstein sought to combine his 
prodigious technical and compositional skills in the service of 
compelling visual communication. He frequently referred to a quote from 
one of his influences, the photographer Lewis Hine, that the purpose of a
 photograph is “to show what needs to be appreciated and to show what 
needs to be changed.” The Arthur Rothstein Photograph Collection is 
evidence of his abundant success in advancing that ideal.
        "Because powerful images are fixed in the mind more readily than 
words, the photographer needs no interpreter. A photograph means the 
same thing all over the world and no translator is required. Photography
 is truly a universal language, transcending all boundaries of race, 
politics and nationality." -- Arthur Rothstein 
Migratory worker, Robstown, Texas, January 1942