Hearst over the people
(c. 1938-1939)
Medium
gelatin silver photograph
Measurements
26.3 × 32.4 cm (image) 26.8 × 33.0 cm (sheet)
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2023
© The Barbara Morgan Estate
Gallery location
Special Exhibitions Gallery
Ground Level, NGV International
About this work
After moving to New York in 1930 with her photojournalist husband, Barbara Morgan turned to photography after a decade devoted to painting and printmaking. While her children were sleeping, she would experiment with avant-garde photographic techniques. In this photomontage, the artist set out to ‘visually distort the consummate distorter’: media mogul William Randolph Hearst, notorious for his sensationalist news empire. Hearst’s grinning face is stretched into a sinister omniscient octopus, its tentacles writhing into crowds of workers on the street. First published in the influential left-wing magazine New Masses, this is a compelling depiction of psychological infiltration. It also, perhaps, proposes Hearst as an effigy of authority for agitators to protest.
Artwork Details
Place/s of Execution
New York, New York, United States
Accession Number
2023.204
Department
International Photography