Dewitz, Bodo von, and Roland Scotti.Alles Wahrheit! Alles
Lu ̈ge! Photographie und Wirklichkeit im 19. Jahrhundert:
Die Sammlung Robert Lebeck. Cologne: Verlag der
Kunst, 1997.
Lebeck, Robert.In Memoriam: Fotografien auf Gra ̈bern.
Dortmund: Harenberg, 1980.
———.Afrika im Jahre Null. Hamburg: Kristall, 1961.
———.Romy Schneider: letzte Bilder eines Mythos. Schaff-
hausen: Edition Stemmle, 1986.
———.Begegnungen mit Grossen der Zeit. Schaffhausen:
Edition Stemmle, 1987.
———.Portra ̈ts.Go ̈ttingen, 1995.
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Munich: Econ, 1999.
Steinorth, Karl, and Meinrad Maria Grewenig, eds.Robert
Lebeck: Fotoreportagen. Stuttgart: Cantz, 1993.RUSSELL LEE
American
Russell Lee is an American photographer best
known for his documentary work on the Great
Depression and the Dust Bowl, which was under-
taken for the Farm Security Administration (FSA)
between 1936 and 1942. Because of his detailed
photographic observations of American social rea-
lities of the late 1930s, Lee was described by Roy
Stryker, the FSA director, as ‘‘a taxonomist with
a camera.’’
The son of Burton and Adeline Lee, Russell was
born in Ottawa, Illinois in 1903. His childhood was
marred by his parents’ divorce and his mother’s
premature death. Lee was entrusted to the care of
several legal guardians, including his grandparents
and his great uncle. He attended Culver Military
Academy in Indiana, where he graduated in 1921,
and then enrolled at Leigh University in Pennsylva-
nia, earning a degree in chemical engineering in
- In spite of this scientific education and a
promising career making composition roofing with
the Certainteed Products Company, based in
Marseilles, Illinois, Lee’s marriage to painter Doris
Emrick in 1927 introduced him to the world of art.
Dissatisfied with his job, Lee resigned from the
Certainteed Products Company in 1929 and
moved first to San Francisco, where he started
painting, and subsequently to the Woodstock Art
Colony, New York. From 1931 to 1936, Lee painted
portraits and landscapes in Woodstock and his first
35 mm camera was bought as a drawing aid. Yet Lee
soon found out that his talent was with photogra-
phy rather than painting. He started documenting
the lives of the people in the Woodstock surround-
ings during the Depression and later focused on
New York, detailing the effects of the economic
crisis on the urban context. His scientific knowledge
allowed Lee to experiment with the photographic
medium and its technical aspects. In particular, the
use of flash became a distinctive feature of his
photographs, enabling Lee to capture detailed
shots of interiors.
In 1936, Roy Stryker invited Lee to join the
photographic team of the Resettlement Adminis-
tration (RA), which was later renamed Farm Se-
curity Administration (FSA). Part of the New Deal
programs to help farmers during the Depression
years, the RA and the FSA used their photographic
section to gain support for their projects. The aim
of the photographic staff, which in addition to Lee
included Ben Shahn, Dorothea Lange, Arthur
Rothstein, Jack Delano, and Walker Evans, was
to show to the nation the predicament of agricul-
tural workers in the 1930s. During his six years
with the FSA, Lee traveled extensively throughout
the United States, recording the rural and the
urban social realities of the Depression. His most
famous work consisted of two series of photo-
graphs of San Augustine, Texas, taken in 1939,
and Pie Town, New Mexico, 1940. Lee’s photo-
graphs, like those of his FSA colleagues, were
widely disseminated through national newspapers,
magazines, and even books, such as Richard
Wright’s12 Million Black Voices(1941). This suc-
cessful photo-documentary volume on African
American history featured both Lee’s rural images
and his grim depiction of black Chicago slums.
Lee’s FSA photographs have been praised as social
documents. Yet, like other FSA photographers,LEBECK, ROBERT