Getty Museum

Grandparents - Baptism Boy

Date

1974–1992

Medium

Gelatin silver prints

Culture

American

Department

Photographs

Institution

Getty Museum

In this sequence of images, Milton Rogovin depicts the development of a family, as one boy grows from infancy to adulthood. First, proud grandparents hold the infant on the day of his baptism in 1974. Then, at eleven years old, the boy is shown in a suit and tie beside his grandmother. The boy's grandfather is not included in this image, which immediately provokes questions as to his whereabouts and implies he had died. Finally, the boy is shown as a strong young man of eighteen towering over his grandmother, who leans on a dresser for support. 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.

The authoritative record is held by Getty Museum. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.