Arthur Rothstein
1915 – 1985
The first FSA photographer, who gave the Dust Bowl its enduring face
About Arthur Rothstein
Arthur Rothstein was born on July 17, 1915, in New York City, the son of Jewish immigrants, and grew up in the Bronx. He attended Columbia University, where he studied during the early years of the Great Depression, founded the University Camera Club, and served as photography editor of the undergraduate yearbook, The Columbian. While at Columbia he came to know Roy Stryker, an economics instructor who would soon shape the most…
Read full biography →From the Collection
Matamoros, Mexico. Death of the bull
1942
New York, New York. Photo mural to promote the sales of…
1942
Memphis, Tennessee. Cars parked on Mississippi River levee
1942
Roadside cabins and trailer park. Texas
1942
U.S. Highway 80, Texas, between Fort Worth and Dallas
1942
U.S. Highway 80, Texas, between Fort Worth and Dallas
1942
Notable Works
Farmer and Sons Walking in the Face of a Dust Storm, Cimarron County, Oklahoma
Rothstein's most famous photograph and one of the defining images of the Dust Bowl. Made in April 1936 in the Oklahoma Panhandle, it shows a farmer and his two young sons bent forward against…
Browse the collection →The Bleached Skull of a Steer on the Dry Sun-Baked Earth of the South Dakota Badlands
Made in May 1936 in Pennington County, South Dakota, this photograph of a sun-bleached steer skull on cracked, parched ground became one of the most controversial images of the FSA project.…
Browse the collection →Vernon Evans and Family, Migrants Leaving the Drought-Stricken Plains
Photographed near Missoula, Montana, in 1936, this image shows the Vernon Evans family from Lemmon, South Dakota, who had loaded their belongings into a car and were leaving the grasshopper-ridden…
Browse the collection →Timeline
Born in New York City on July 17, the son of Jewish immigrants, and raised in the Bronx
Graduates from Columbia University, where he founded the camera club and studied under Roy Stryker
Hired by Stryker as the first staff photographer of the Resettlement Administration (later the FSA)
Photographs the Dust Bowl in Cimarron County, Oklahoma, making "Farmer and Sons Walking in the Face of a Dust Storm"
Makes the steer-skull photographs in the South Dakota Badlands; the images later spark a national staging controversy
"Documentary photographers all have a common characteristic. They are curious, yet objective. They search with inquisitive zeal for the essence of nature and events."
— Arthur Rothstein