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UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY ART MUSEUM

Contact: Dorothy Freeman
dafree2@email.uky.edu
Phone 859-257-5717
Fax 859-323-1994
www.uky.edu/ArtMuseum

For Immediate Release: December 14 2006

BOUND for GLORY:
America in Color 1939 - 1943
January 21 - April 15, 2007
UK Art Museum
Rose St. & Euclid Ave. , Lexington, KY 

Exhibition prices:
$5 general public, $4 tours (by reservation),
$3 senior citizens, Free for all students, UK Art Museum members, UK alumni faculty, and staff (current and retired)
Free Friday nights from 5 until 8 pm.

RUSSELL LEE, Faro and Doris Caudill,
Homesteaders, Pie Town, New Mexicio, 1940.

Bound for Glory: America in Color, the first major exhibition of rare color images made in the 1930s and '40s by leading members of the legendary Farm Security Administration (FSA) photography unit, will be on view at the University of Kentucky Art Museum from January 21 through April 15.

Striking black-and-white images by photographers such as Arthur Rothstein, Marion Post Wolcott, Russell Lee, Jack Delano and John Vachon have shaped our national vision of this period in time, and particularly the hardships of the Depression. What is less known is that many of these photographers began experimenting with Kodachrome, a then-new color transparency film. Seventy digital color photographs made from transparencies taken between 1939 and 1943 reveal a surprisingly vibrant world of farmers, farm families and state fairs from Maine to New Mexico, and New Hampshire to Georgia.  

Many of these color photographs have never been printed before, and vividly capture the effect of the Depression on America's rural and small town populations, the national's subsequent economic recovery and industrial growth, and the country's great mobilization for World War II.

Bound for Glory: America in Color, 1939-1943, Bound for Glory: America in Color, 1939-1943, opening January 21 at the University of Kentucky Art Museum, is the first major exhibition of the little-known color images taken by photographers of the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information (FSA/OWI). It will

Approximately a dozen photographers were employed by the Farm Security Administration (FSA) and its successor agency, the Office of War Information (OWI), from 1935 through 1944. The original goal of the government project was to record, through documentary photographs, the ravages of the Depression on America's rural population and were intended to spur Congress and the American public to support government relief efforts. With an improved economy, increased industrialization and the onset of World War II, the photographs increasingly focused on an America that was productive, beautiful and determined. The photographs, originally intended to have a narrow focus, provide a broader national record.

The 70 images in the exhibition were chosen from 175 photographs found in Bound for Glory, a 192-page hardcover book published in 2004 by the Library of Congress in association with Harry N. Abrams Inc. This companion publication includes a reference number for each of the photographs, which allows readers to search for the specific image online or order photographic prints from the Library's Photoduplication Service (www.loc.gov/preserv/pds). The book will be available in the University of Kentucky Museum shop during the run of the exhibition. To see the complete collection of FSA/OWI photographs-171,000 black-and-white images and 1,602 color images - visit the Library's web site at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsowhome.html.

Bound for Glory is a Library of Congress Exhibition.

The Friends of the UK Art Museum and Clay Ingels are local sponsors. 

Promotional partners for the exhibition are Brown-Forman Corporation, Jordan-Chiles Advertising, Insight Communication and Lexington's Wild Oats Market Place

The University of Kentucky Art Museum, located on the corner of Rose St. and Euclid Ave., is open noon to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday and noon to 8 p.m. on Friday; closed Monday and University holidays.  For general museum information, call 859-257-5716 or visit www.uky.edu/ArtMuseum.