Getty Museum

Hector and Sugar

Date

1973–1992

Medium

Gelatin silver prints

Culture

American

Department

Photographs

Institution

Getty Museum

In the first photograph of this triptych Hector and Sugar stand close together against an outside brick wall, framed by basement windows. They are both fashionably dressed. Hector appears at ease with the camera, while Sugar, by contrast, looks uncomfortable as she stands rigidly upright. Eleven years later, their family had blossomed into a brood of nine grouped on the stairs and porch of the family's home. Baby strollers abound in the weeds like ersatz flowers. In the most recent image, new children or possibly grandchildren appear while Hector is absent, provoking curiosity about the turn of events that has reconfigured this family group. 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 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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