Kuwait

Artist/Maker Sebastião Salgado (Brazilian, born 1944)

Date1991

MediumGelatin silver print

DimensionsImage: 11 3/4 × 17 5/8 in. (29.8 × 44.8 cm) Sheet: 13 9/16 × 19 5/8 in. (34.4 × 49.8 cm) Frame: 21 7/8 × 26 7/8 × 2 in. (55.6 × 68.3 × 5.1 cm)

Credit LinePurchase, William G. Roehrick '34 Art Acquisition and Preservation Fund

Object number2015.2

Not on view

DescriptionSebastião Salgado, raised in Brazil and currently living in France, is a self-identified documentary photographer who became a member of the Magnum Photos agency in 1979. Prior to his photographic career, Salgado had set out to earn a doctorate in agricultural economics. Much of his photography is socially concerned, dwelling on the plight of laborers and human suffering, and he has collaborated with a number of humanitarian organizations. The artist has said that the purpose of photography is “to have the strongest relation with a person, to go inside the intensity of a person.” Kuwait depicts two workers in the Greater Burgan oil field in southeastern Kuwait. This oil field—the second largest in the world—was set aflame by retreating Iraqi soldiers in 1991 during the first Gulf War. American firefighters struggled to extinguish the fires and repair the nearly six hundred damaged wells by hand. In the postures of the two men, associations can be drawn to religious figures in medieval and Renaissance works of art, which lend the composition a moral weight. Although Salgado did not pose the workers, he was very selective about which exposures to process and print. While in Kuwait, the photographer shot two hundred rolls of film with three Leica cameras fitted with 28-millimeter wide-angle, 35-millimeter, and 60-millimeter portrait lenses and, from each roll—which typically allow twenty-four exposures—printed an average of six photographs. (SOURCE: Alcauskas, INNOVATIVE APPROACHES, HONORED TRADITIONS, 2017)

Collections

Additional Details

Alternate Titles Burhan, Kuwait
Greater Burhan Oil Field from the Kuwait Series

Exhibition History 2017
Clinton, NY (Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art, Hamilton College). "Innovative Approaches, Honored Traditions: The Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Five Years, Highlights from the Permanent Collection," September 9 - December 10, 2017 (cat. no. 115, illus.);

2015
Clinton, NY (Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art, Hamilton College). "Wellin Collects: Recent Acquistions from the Wellin Museum Collection," May 5 - July 26, 2015.

Provenance 2015: Hamilton College (The Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum), by purchase from Swann Auction Galleries, New York, February 19, 2015;
? - 2015: Unknown Southern collector, acquired from Jackson Fine Art, Inc., Atlanta, GA;
?: Jackson Fine Art, Inc., Atlanta, GA.

Markings Blind stamp: "© SEBASTIÃO SALGADO" at lower left margin.

Published References Katherine D. Alcauskas, INNOVATIVE APPROACHES, HONORED TRADITIONS: THE RUTH AND ELMER WELLIN MUSEUM OF ART AT FIVE YEARS, HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE PERMANENT COLLECTION (Clinton, NY: Wellin Museum of Art, 2017), p. 252.

Signature Signed "S. Selgado / Kuwait 1991" on verso at lower right in pencil.

Inscribed "SS 146-18" on verso lower right corner in pencil.