ESTHER BUBLEY (1921-1998) A pair of photographs taken in Greyhound Bus Terminals. 1943; printed 1980s. Silver prints, the images measuring 7¾x7½ inches (19.7x19.1 cm.) and 7½x7¼ inches (19.1x18.4 cm.), the sheets 10x8 inches (25.4x20.3 cm.), each with Bubley's credit and negative date in pencil on verso. Freelance photographer Esther Bubley (1921-1998) gained renown for her revealing pictures of the American society taken during the "golden age" of American photojournalism, from 1945 to 1965. She produced many photo-essays and several cover stories for LIFEmagazine. But her most important magazine project was "How America Lives" for Ladies' Home Journal, a celebrated series which ran intermittently between 1948 and 1960. Her stylistic approach was straightforward; she didn't depict polished moment but rather focused on capturing impactful images behind the scenes. Even if Bubley worked primarily for magazines, her work has been shown in several group shows at the Museum of Modern Art and she even was given a one-person show at Helen Gee's legendary Limelight. The Waiting Room of a Greyhound Bus Terminal at 5:30 AM. * A Greyhound Bus Trip from Louisville, Kentucky to Memphis, TN.
Esther Bubley (American, 1921-1998) New York Harbor from Weehawken, New Jersey, 1946 Gelatin silver print; typed caption label and a Standard Oil Co. credit stamp on the verso. 10 x 7 1/2 in. (25.4 x 19 cm.)
Esther Bubley (1922-1998) Esther Bubley (1922-1998) JOHN G. MORRIS IN THE SWIMMING POOL, ARMONK, 1950, Vintage Silver gelatin print, image size, 210 x 187mm, annotated in pen, pencil and crayon verso
Esther Bubley, Rockefeller Center, Standard Oil Co., c. 1945, Vintage gelatin silver print, 8.75" x 7.5". Matted. Artist's credit stamped on verso. Standard Oil credit stamped on verso. Number in pencil on verso.
ESTHER BUBLEY (1991-1998) | Ouro Preto, Brasil 1956 | Vintage silver print, mounted on exhibition cardboard, early exhibition print | Size: 49,3 x 31,8 cm | Label and several handwritten notations referring to an exhibition tour on the reverse | American Photography
Esther Bubley, SS Waltham Victory, 1940s, Vintage gelatin silver print, 13.5" x 10.25". Artist's credit for Standard Oil stamped on verso. Typed caption affixed to verso. Numbered in pen and pencil on verso.
Esther Bubley (American, 1921-1998). Photograph of the Bow Bridge in Central Park, New York, at night. Silver gelatin print. Stamped along the verso: "Esther Bubley, 1741 Broadway, New York 19, N.Y., Circle 7-5444." Provenance: Private collection, Minnesota Height: 10 1/4 in x width: 20 1/4 in.
Esther Bubley (American, 1921-1998). Photograph titled "Birds in Snow, Central Park," depicting a flock of birds perched on snow-covered branches. Silver gelatin print. Pencil inscribed with the title and artist's name along the verso. Height: 13 1/4 in x width: 20 in.
Esther Bubley, Humble Co., Tomball Field, At the pool hall owned by E.D. Smith, Humble roustabout, 1945, Vintage gelatin silver print, 10.5" x 10.5". Artist's credit for Standard Oil stamped on verso. Typed caption affixed to verso. Numbered in pencil on verso. Reproduction notes on verso. A protégée of Roy Stryker at the U.S. Office of War Information and subsequently at Standard Oil Company (New Jersey), Esther Bubley (1921-1998) was a preeminent freelance photographer during the "golden age" of American photojournalism, from 1945 to 1965. At a time when most post-war American women were anchored by home and family, Bubley was a thriving professional, traveling throughout the world, photographing stories for magazines such as LIFE and the Ladies' Home Journal and for prestigious corporate clients that included Pepsi-Cola and Pan American World Airways. "Put me down with people, and it's just overwhelming," Bubley exclaimed in an interview. Like most great photojournalists, she found her art in everyday life, and she successfully balanced her artistic ambitions with the demands of commercial publishing. Edward Steichen, curator of photographs at the Museum of Modern Art and the era's arbiter of taste, was a great supporter of Bubley, whose work embodied his aesthetic ideal that photography "explain man to man and each to himself." She was shown in several group shows at the Museum of Modern Art and was given a one-person show at the Limelight, Helen Gee's legendary coffee house and the only gallery specializing in photography in New York during the 1950s. Bubley worked primarily for the printed page, however, and like her colleagues, can be only partially understood in the context of today's gallery-oriented photography world, in which photographs are shown as isolated works of art. Bubley was a superb industrial photographer, capable of creating striking modernist patterns in black and white and color under technically challenging conditions. She was also a "people photographer" with an uncanny ability to achieve intimacy with her subjects and to construct subtle and complex narratives through sequences of photographs. Bubley's photographs are of cultural as well as artistic interest. Her photo-essays explore the era's American stereotypes—the troubled child, the high school drop-out, the harried housewife, the enterprising farm family—that were elaborated in the pages of the magazines for which she worked. Her corporate assignments document the introduction of American companies into traditional cultures abroad. Bubley developed a specialty in stories about health care and mental health, documenting the era's faith in new technologies and the growing prestige of psychology and psychiatry. She also covered her share of celebrities and popular culture topics, including children's television and beauty contests. A cross-section of Bubley's work provides a revealing glimpse into the post-war decades, seen not only through Bubley's lens but through the pages of the illustrated magazines that dominated the mass media of the time. Born in 1921, Esther Bubley was the fourth of five children of Louis and Ida Bubley, Russian Jewish immigrants who settled in northern Wisconsin. Although Louis later developed a successful auto parts business, the family struggled through the Depression with Ida helping to support the family by running a small-town general store. Esther's interest in photography, which began in high school, developed in college during her two years at Superior State Teachers College and a third at the Minneapolis College of Art. In 1941 at age twenty, she ventured to New York City to become a professional photographer. After a brief stint at Vogue, she moved to Washington, D.C., where war-time jobs for women were plentiful, to shoot microfilm for the National Archives. Bubley's career was launched in the fall of 1942, when Roy Stryker hired her as a darkroom assistant at the Office of War Information (OWI), successor of his nationally renowned Farm Security Administration (FSA) photographic unit. With Stryker's encouragement, she began photographing in Washington, and shortly thereafter, he sent her on assignment and contributed her photographs to the OWI files. In late 1943, when he left the government to set up a public relations project for Standard Oil Company (New Jersey) (SONJ), Stryker hired many OWI photographers, including Gordon Parks, John Vachon, and Bubley. At SONJ, Stryker continued the photographic documentation of American life that he had begun for the federal government. Interpreting his mission broadly, he dispatched his photographers all over the country to show that "there is a drop of oil in everything." Bubley is best known today for two early SONJ projects: a 1945 portrayal of the oil town of Tomball, Texas, and the 1947 "Bus Story," which spotlighted the role of long-distance bus travel in American life. She traveled far and wide -- from Minnesota iron mines to Massachusetts onion fields to North Carolina paper mills -- producing monumental depictions of industrial and agricultural labor. After Stryker departed Standard Oil in 1950, leaving 55,000 photographs in its archive, Bubley continued to work for the company. She traveled to Europe, Asia, Australia, and Central and South America, often combining SONJ work with assignments for other corporations. Her 1952 SONJ photo-essay on Matera, an Italian town transformed by the construction of a hydro-electric dam, and her 1954 photo-essay for UNICEF on treatment of the eye disease trachoma among the desert inhabitants of Morocco, are considered her crowning achievements outside the United States. Stryker moved from SONJ to Pittsburgh, where the city's university asked him to establish a photographic project. In 1951, he hired Bubley to document the Pittsburgh Children's Hospital. The following year, Steichen featured Bubley's Pittsburgh work in the prestigious "Diogenes With a Camera" series at the Museum of Modern Art. These photographs mark a shift in her style, from a carefully choreographed manner recalling Normal Rockwell's anecdotal Americana, or the heroic rhetoric of social realism, to a more spontaneous, intimate form of narrative. Although she had mastered artificial light and many camera formats, Bubley increasingly relied on the small, flexible 35mm camera and natural light. Photographs like those capturing an emergency tracheotomy in the hospital's hallway convinced her of what she could do without preparation. While working for Stryker and corporate clients, Bubley became a regular freelance photographer for numerous national magazines. She produced many photo-essays and several cover stories for LIFE, the nation's most prestigious magazine with a circulation of 24 million. Bubley's most ambitious magazine project, however, was "How America Lives" for Ladies' Home Journal, a celebrated series which ran intermittently between 1948 and 1960. Among the families interviewed and photographed were the Roods of Wahoo, Nebraska, who paid off a forty-year farm mortgage in six years; the Schmidts of Cincinnati, who despite incompatible Rh blood factors, produced four healthy children; the Simons of Los Angeles, who avoided divorce through psychotherapy; and the Colemans of Manhattan, who aspired to a house with a yard in the suburbs. Bubley also produced "How Young America Lives," about young families, and "Profile on Youth," about teenagers. These stories, rich in anecdote, reveal the preoccupations of American women of the 1950s. By the mid-1960s, television replaced magazines as the primary source of news and entertainment, undermining the demand for top photojournalists like Bubley. After twenty years of extraordinary productivity and exhausting travel, she accommodated herself to the change, reducing her workload and readjusting her ambitions. Briefly married in the late 1940s to Edwin Locke, a writer who also worked for Stryker at SONJ, she avoided domestic attachments and treasured her large midtown Manhattan apartment as a symbol of her personal accomplishments. A passionate gardener and pet owner, she published several books in the 1960s and 1970s about plants and animals. In the 1980s and 1990s, photography specialists, often investigating Stryker, rediscovered Bubley. Three books showcasing her photographs - images of children, New York sites funded by the Rockefeller family, and a Charlie Parker jam session - were published in this period. Her prints have been acquired by museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Library of Congress, the National Portrait Gallery, George Eastman House, and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art. In 1990, the art department of the State University of Buffalo organized a small Bubley retrospective, and in 2001 the UBS/PaineWebber Art Gallery showed a comprehensive retrospective, which continues to travel. (EstherBubley.com)
Seismograph worker, Texas. 1945/printed 1960s/70s. Gelatin silver print. 27,8 x 35,4 cm. Signed by the photographer in pencil and annotated/number notations in pencil on the verso. - - Corners slightly bumped, light crease in upper left corner, otherwise in very good condition. - - Sollten Sie detailliertere Zustandsberichte wünschen, kontaktieren Sie uns bitte. / Should you need more detailed condition reports, please contact us.
[Photography] Bubley, Ester (American 1921-1998). "Untitled". Gelatin silver print of a woman and cows. n.d. Stamped on verso. Framed: 14 1/2" x 11 1/2". Provenance From the collection of Esther Bubley's niece. Condition Near fine. Taped to matting.
Bubley, Ester (American 1921-1998). "Untitled". Gelatin silver print of a woman and cows. n.d. Stamped on verso. Framed: 14 1/2" x 11 1/2". Provenance From the collection of Esther Bubley's niece. Condition Near fine. Taped to matting.
Esther Bubley (1922-1998). Photograph depicting a couple holding hands and walking along a fence among trees in Central Park. Silver gelatin print. Inscribed "Central Park, 1974" along the verso, and stamped along the verso: "Esther Bubley, 1741 Broadway, New York 19, N.Y., Circle 7-5333." Provenance: Private collection, Minnesota Height: 9 1/2 in x width: 13 1/4 in. SKU: 02401 Follow us on Instagram: @revereauctions
Esther Bubley (1922-1998). Photograph depicting a bird and leafless trees reflecting in a pond. Silver gelatin print. Stamped along the verso: "Esther Bubley, 1741 Broadway, New York 19, N.Y., Circle 7-5333." Provenance: Private collection, Minnesota Height: 8 1/2 in x width: 12 3/4 in. SKU: 02400 Follow us on Instagram: @revereauctions
Esther Bubley (1922-1998). Photograph of the Bow Bridge in Central Park, New York, at night. Silver gelatin print. Stamped along the verso: "Esther Bubley, 1741 Broadway, New York 19, N.Y., Circle 7-5444." Provenance: Private collection, Minnesota Height: 10 1/4 in x width: 20 1/4 in. SKU: 02399 Follow us on Instagram: @revereauctions
Esther Bubley (1922-1998). Photograph of children playing in Central Park. Silver gelatin print. 1962. Stamped along the verso: "Esther Bubley, 1741 Broadway, New York 19, N.Y., Circle 7-5444." Additionally inscribed "Central Park, 1962" along the verso. Provenance: Private collection, Minnesota Height: 15 1/4 in x width: 19 3/4 in. SKU: 02398 Follow us on Instagram: @revereauctions
ESTHER BUBLEY, Family with child in the Greyhound Bus Station Waiting Room, 1947. 6 ¼ x 9 ½ -inch ferrotyped gelatin silver print, Standard Oil Co. credit stamp and return stamp, other notations in pencil and a label mounted with a typed number and title.
ESTHER BUBLEY, Sleeping passengers, Greyhound Bus Station, NYC waiting room, 1947. 6 ¼ x 9 ½- inch ferrotyped gelatin silver prints. Each has Bubley's Standard Oil Co. credit stamp and return stamp, other notations in pencil and a label mounted with a typed number and title. Possibly printed a little later than the previous lot, but they do not fluoresce.
ESTHER BUBLEY, Greyhound Bus Station NYC, 1947, printed 1947. 8 ¾ x 11 7/8 -inch gelatin silver print flush mounted to heavy board. Signed by Bubley in pen, with her stamp and other notations on the verso. Roy Stryker, coordinator of the FSA project and then the Office of War Information, arranged for Bubley and other photographers to document oil-powered transportation. This is from her series dealing with ordinary travelers at the Greyhound Bus Station. You can see how influential these are on some later photographers. The husband and wife each look off in different directions.
Esther BUBLEY (1922-1998) West 47th street - 1949 Tirage argentique d'époque Titré et signé au crayon et tampon de l'artiste au verso h: 33 w: 11,30 cm Commentaire : VINTAGE GELATIN SILVER PRINT; TITLED AND SIGNED WITH ARTIST'S STAMP ON VERSO
ESTHER BUBLEY (1921-1998) In the Waiting Room, Greyhound Bus Terminal, New York, c. 1949 gelatin silver print date stamps, caption and collection labels affixed (on the reverse of the mount) image: 6½ x 9½in. (16.5 x 24cm.) mount: 9 x 14in. (35.5 x 22.7cm.)
ESTHER BUBLEY (1921-1998) Sleeping Passengers, Greyhound Bus Terminal, New York City, c. 1949 gelatin silver print credit in ink, date stamps, typed credit and caption on collection label affixed (on the reverse of the mount) image: 6¾ x 9½in. (17.2 x 24cm.) mount: 9 x 14in. (22.7 x 35.5cm.)
BUBLEY, ESTHER (1921-1998) "Bus Story." Silver print, 8 1/2x13 1/4 inches (21.6x33.7 cm.), with Bubley's signature, and the title and date, in an unknown hand, in pencil, on verso. Circa 1947
ESTHER BUBLEY (1921-1998) Near Dryden, Terrell County, Texas, 1947 gelatin silver print typed credit and title on a label affixed (on the verso) 7 5/8 x 7 3/8in. (19.4 x 18.8cm.)
"Girl meets geese in the children's zoo, Bronx Zoo, New York". 1940s. Vintage gelatin silver print. 21,3 x 19,3 cm. 2 Standard Oil Co. stamps, annotated in various hands in ink and pencil, typed paper text label on the verso.A few handling creases, otherwise in very good condition.
"In the Waiting Room" (Greyhound Bus Terminal, 245 West 50th Street, New York). 1940s. Vintage gelatin silver print. 16 x 23,5 cm. 2 Standard Oil Co. stamps, annotated in various hands in red crayon/pencil and typed paper text label on the verso.Esther Bubley was one of the first American documentarists to look at life in America from a woman's point of view. She was one of the last photographers to be taken on by the Farm Security Administration in Washington. Later she was employed by Roy Stryker at Standard Oil and then in the late 1940s by Life magazine. - A few handling creases, bumped edges, otherwise in good condition. Lit.: Esther Bubley. On Assignment (Aperture). New York 2005.
ESTHER BUBLEY (1921-1998) Greyhound Bus Terminal, Memphis, Tennessee, 1943 gelatin silver print credit in pencil (on the verso) 11¼ x 10 3/8in. (28.5 x 26.3cm.)
ESTHER BUBLEY (1921-1998) Greyhound Bus Passengers (Coast to Coast), 1947 gelatin silver print, printed later signed, titled, dated in pencil and copyright credit stamp (on the verso) 7½ x 12 5/8in. (19.1 x 32.1cm.)
ESTHER BUBLEY (American, 1922-1998) Louisville-Nashville Bus at Rest Stop, September 1943, 1943 Vintage gelatin silver, circa 1943 12 x 10-1/4 inches (30.5 x 26.0 cm) Verso: Gamma Credit stamp, titled and dated in graphite in unidentified hand State: unmounted
ESTHER BUBLEY (American, 1922-1998) Bus Story, 1947 Vintage gelatin silver, 1947 Paper: 9-1/8 x 12-1/2 inches (23.2 x 31.8 cm) Image: 6-3/4 x 10-1/8 inches (17.1 x 25.7 cm) Verso: signed in graphite in artist's hand State: unmounted
Sailor Asleep on Train, 1940 Gelatin silver print, printed 1950s, the photographer's hand stamp and credit in pencil on verso, in generally good condition, 1/2in horizontal tear at center right edge of image, 3/4in scratch with emulsion loss in upper right quadrant, a few light scratches in image, light surface rubs, not framed. 12 x 10 1/2in
Esther Bubley (1921-1998) New York Harbor, Looking Toward Manhattan from the Footpath on Brooklyn Bridge, October, 1946 gelatin silver print, printed c. 1950s 9½ x 6¾ in. (24.1 x 17.1 cm.)
Central Park, New York. Silver print, 9x13 1/2 inches (22.9x34.3 cm.), with the photographer's hand stamp and titled with notations, in pencil, on verso. 1950s
"Boxing is a favorite sport, Bayway Community Center, Elizabeth, New Jersey." Silver print, 7 1/2 x7 1/4 inches (19x18.4 cm.), with a typed caption label and 2 Standard Oil hand stamps on verso. Circa 1940s
