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The Yale Alumni Magazine is owned and operated by Yale Alumni Publications, Inc., a nonprofit corporation independent of Yale University. The content of the magazine and its website is the responsibility of the editors and does not necessarily reflect the views of Yale or its officers. |
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They Don’t Live Here Anymore Five years ago, after photographer David Ottenstein ’82 read about painful changes in the Midwest’s rural economy, he decided to travel to Iowa and photograph its agricultural landscape and buildings. “I fell in love with the countryside, and I saw that its beauty and way of life were quickly disappearing,” he says.
Ottenstein, who lives in New Haven, has returned to Iowa several times since then, mostly at his own expense. (He also had a small grant from the Iowa Arts Council and the Center for Prairie Studies at Grinnell College.) He has taken more than 3,000 black-and-white pictures, both on film and, more recently, with digital cameras, of abandoned homes, fields, grain elevators—the structures that supported a way of life now gone or vanishing. The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library recently acquired 300 of Ottenstein’s Iowa photographs for its Western Americana collection. At the time, George Miles, curator of the collection, commented, “Ottenstein combines aesthetic and documentary images in ways reminiscent of Walker Evans, Margaret Bourke-White, and other American photographers of the 1930s, but with a contemporary sensibility that avoids sentimentality.” The kitchen in the 2004 image above is part of a
farmhouse north of Iowa Falls. The farmer’s sons want no part of farming, so,
although their father continues to work the land around the house, the family
has moved away. The abandoned house is now used as a dumping ground. “There’s a
sense of sadness and loss,” says Ottenstein, “even among those who are tearing
things down.” |
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Joseph Wright of Derby in Liverpool A display of more than 80 paintings and drawings by Joseph Wright of Derby (1734-1797) and his contemporaries examines Wright's creative development in Liverpool, England, during the time of that city’s cultural renaissance and growing status as a major world port. A World of Letters: Yale University Press, 1908–2008 Catalogues, memorabilia, historical documents, and some of the 8,000 books printed by the Yale University Press over its 100-year history make up an exhibition that celebrates the press’s centennial. Behind the Seen: The Photographs of Abelardo Morell An in-depth look at the role that artworks and monuments play in Abelardo Morell’s major photographic series. Morell, the Happy and Bob Doran Artist in Residence at the Art Gallery, is currently creating new work based on the gallery’s collections. Norfolk Choral Festival The final performance of the Norfolk Music Festival—part of the Yale Summer School of Music held at the Ellen Battell Stoeckel estate in Norfolk, Connecticut—features the Norfolk Festival Chorus and Orchestra in a program of Panetti, Arne, and Vaughan Williams, along with Renaissance motets and Schubert part-songs. Jungles: Photographs by Frans Lanting Forty-five images by master photographer and naturalist Frans Lanting depict the aesthetic splendor and remarkable natural history of tropical rainforests. |
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©1992–2012, Yale Alumni Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. Yale Alumni Magazine, P.O. Box 1905, New Haven, CT 06509-1905, USA. yam@yale.edu |
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