Untitled

Margaret Bourke-White was for much of her career the quintessential photojournalist. A major contributor to Life magazine, starting with its inaugural edition in 1936, Bourke-White was the first of dozens of female photojournalists who appeared, and then disappeared, during the golden age of news magazines in the mid-twentieth century. Her precision and strong sense of design were formed while working as an industrial photographer, glamorizing the steel industry and urban architecture.

In 1930 Bourke-White was the first Western photographer allowed to take pictures in the Soviet Union. This perfectly composed, beautifully lit photograph shows infants at mealtime in a Soviet orphanage. Light plays on the almost identical heads of the sexually indeterminate three-year-olds, solemnly sharing milk and bread at a child-size table with a spotless white tablecloth.