Experimental TV Eye

1934

Not on view

Experimental TV Eye relates to a photomural commissioned for the lobby of NBC Studios in the RCA Building at Rockefeller Center. Bourke-White enlarged pictures onto canvas covered with a photographic emulsion. While the other panels for NBC celebrate the rise of radio technology through close-ups of microphones and antenna towers, this work imagines television’s mode of vision prior to the emergence of broadcast television. Bourke-White’s dynamic portrait of the "new media" of the 1930s gestures toward her interest in experimental film, which she pursued alongside her work as a journalist and photographer of architectural and industrial subjects.

Artwork Details

Object Information

Overview

Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings

Provenance

Exhibition History

Title: Experimental TV Eye
Artist: Margaret Bourke-White (American, Bronx, New York 1904–1971 Darien, Connecticut)
Date: 1934
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Dimensions: 34.4 x 24.1 cm (13 9/16 x 9 1/2 in.)
Classification: Photographs
Credit Line: Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, 1987
Object Number: 1987.1100.450
Curatorial Department: Photographs

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