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
Not on display
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