Getty Museum

Eva and Daughter

Date

1973–1992

Medium

Gelatin silver prints

Culture

American

Department

Photographs

Institution

Getty Museum

In this triptych, Milton Rogovin illustrated the evolution of one family. Eva appears as a single mother in the first frame, not far removed from childhood herself. Mother and daughter, both heavily bundled against the cold, stand on an urban sidewalk, suggesting that on this first encounter the photographer was not invited into the private space of their home. The second photograph shows Eva and her daughter standing in front of the television set at home, surrounded by familial and religious images. Their age difference seems so small that they could be mistaken for sisters. The final photograph, made nineteen years after the first, portrays Eva as a grandmother and her daughter as a mother of three. While they have changed over the years, some of their possessions have remained constant; the same sculpture of a woman bearing a basket of flowers is found in both the second and third photographs. Rogovin purchased his first camera in 1942 and thirty years later began photographing on the Lower West Side of Buffalo, New York, with his wife and collaborator Anne at his side. He had worked as an optometrist on Chippewa Street in Buffalo for many years, but his commitment to social issues made him politically suspect in the eyes of the House Un-American Activities Committee. He was labeled “Buffalo’s Top Red” by the *Buffalo Evening News*, which impacted his career but did not deter him and Anne from continuing to make socially engaged photographs for the remainder of their time together. Seeking to capture the strength and resilience of residents of Buffalo’s Lower West Side, Rogovin photographed the same individuals and families over the course of three decades. They included families of diverse ethnicities such as those of Puerto Rican, African American, Native American, and Italian heritage. He was 92 years old when he finished his Lower West Side series in 2002. The resulting photographs are a remarkable record of the power and perseverance of these Buffalo families and of Rogovin and his wife’s thirty-plus-year commitment to celebrating these families. Adapted from getty.edu, Interpretive Content Department, 2008; with additions by Carolyn Peter, Department of Photographs, J. Paul Getty Museum, 2022.

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