Marion Post Wolcott
FSA Photographs, 1938 - 1942

Exhibition:  November 5 - December 18, 2004
Second Saturday Reception:  November 13, 5:30 - 8:30 p.m.
 
Click on the thumbnail images below to view a larger image
 
 
Mosquito Crossing
Two Women & Log Cabin
Woman Making Biscuits
Man in Carriage
     
 
Annually, the Sacramento Archives and Museum Collection Center (SAMCC) presents the final exhibit of the year at the Viewpoint Gallery. This year’s exhibit features images by FSA photographer Marion Post Wolcott, primarily from the period of the late 1930s and early 1940s.
 
Marion Post was born in Montclair, New Jersey in 1910. After studies at NYU, she went to Europe in 1932, studying dance in Paris and then child psychology in Vienna. In Vienna she met photographer Trude Fleischmann (with whom her sister Helen was studying), who reacted encouragingly to Post’s first photos, saying, “Sis, you’ve got a good eye.”
 
Witnessing the rise of Nazism and Fascism in Europe, Post became committed to progressive political activism. When life in Vienna finally became to dangerous, she returned to the U.S., where she continued both her activism and her photography. She attended lectures at the Photo League, and in 1937 helped Paul Strand on his film on trade unions, People of the Cumberlands.
 
Post was a photographer for the Philadelphia Evening Post when Roy Stryker invited her to join the Farm Security Administration (FSA). She joined a small group of photographers (including Walker Evans, Russell Lee, Gordon Parks, Arthur Rothstein, and Dorothea Lange) assigned to publicize the conditions of the rural poor in America. From 1938 to 1942, she traveled and photographed in the South.
 
After marrying Lee Wolcott in 1942, she still managed to make some serious photographs while raising her children. Returning to the U.S. after living in Iran, Egypt, and India, she taught and photographed American Indian children, documented the 1970s counter-culture in California, and was actively involved with the photographic communities in San Francisco and Santa Barbara. Marion Post Wolcott died in Santa Barbara in 1990.
 
All images shown are copyrighted by the artist.
 
Past Viewpoint Gallery Exhibitions
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