Getty Museum
Machine Nuts
Creator
Margaret Bourke-WhiteAmerican Photographer · 1904–1971
All works by this person →Born in New York, Margaret Bourke-White began to study photography at Columbia University in 1921. After moving to Cleveland in 1927, she became an architectural and industrial photographer. Two years later she was invited to work for *Fortune* magazine in New York. While working for *Fortune,* Bourke-White also did freelance work, and her interests turned increasingly from aesthetic formalism to
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- about 1925
- Medium
- Gelatin silver print
- Culture
- American
- Department
- Photographs
- Institution
- Getty Museum
This photograph is one of Margaret Bourke-White's earliest images, which were formal, Modernist studies. A haphazard arrangement of seven hexagonal machine nuts photographed in close-up becomes a zigzagging steel maze. With strong directional lighting from above and to the left casting deep shadows into the threaded wells of the nuts, these nuggets of hardware transcend their relatively small size and utilitarian function to become symbols of power for the Machine Age.
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