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| Man Ray Nancy Cunard 1928 gelatin silver print Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Margaret Bourke-White Garden of Mrs Homer H. Johnson ca. 1928 gelatin silver print Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio |
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| Margaret Bourke-White Plow Blades, Oliver Chilled Plow Company 1929 gelatin silver print Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri |
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| Eugen Wiškovský Untitled (Shirt Collars) ca. 1929 gelatin silver print Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
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| Emil Otto Hoppé Foyles Booksellers, London 1929 gelatin silver print Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
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| Edward Steichen Helen Wills 1929 gelatin silver print Minneapolis Institute of Art |
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| George Hurrell Norma Shearer 1929 gelatin silver print Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
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| Lotte Stam-Beese Katt Both ca. 1929 gelatin silver print Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
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| Léonard Misonne Pied de Géants 1929 bromoil print Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri |
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| Charles Sheeler Chartres - Buttresses from the South Porch 1929 gelatin silver print Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri |
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| Albert Renger-Patzsch Untitled ca. 1929 gelatin silver print Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Berenice Abbott Cherry Street, New York City 1930 gelatin silver print Minneapolis Institute of Art |
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| Claude Cahun Aveux Non Avenus 1930 platinum print (photo-collage) Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
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| Claude Cahun Aveux Non Avenus 1930 platinum print (photo-collage) Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
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| Anonymous Photographer Women in Top Hats behind Bride ca. 1930 gelatin silver print Princeton University Art Museum |
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| Baron Adolf De Meyer Maria, Duchesse de Gramont ca. 1930 gelatin silver print Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
Tract
I will teach you my townspeople
how to perform a funeral –
for you have it over a troop
of artists –
unless one should scour the world –
you have the ground sense necessary.
See! the hearse leads.
I begin with a design for a hearse.
For Christ's sake not black –
nor white either – and not polished!
Let it be weathered – like a farm wagon –
with gilt wheels (this could be
applied fresh at small expense)
or no wheels at all:
a rough dray to drag over the ground.
Knock the glass out!
My God – glass, my townspeople!
For what purpose? Is it for the dead
to look out or for us to see
how well he is housed or to see
the flowers or the lack of them –
or what?
To keep the rain and snow from him?
He will have a heavier rain soon:
pebbles and dirt and what not.
Let there be no glass –
and no upholstery phew!
and no little brass rollers
and small easy wheels on the bottom –
my townspeople what are you thinking of?
A rough plain hearse then
with gilt wheels and no top at all.
On this the coffin lies
by its own weight.
No wreathes please –
especially no hot house flowers.
Some common memento is better,
something he prized and is known by:
his old clothes – a few books perhaps –
God knows what! You realize
how we are about these things
my townspeople –
something will be found – anything
even flowers if he had come to that.
So much for the hearse.
For heaven's sake though see to the driver!
Take off the silk hat! In fact
that's no place at all for him –
up there unceremoniously
dragging our friend out to his own dignity!
Bring him down – bring him down!
Low and inconspicuous! I'd not have him ride
on the wagon at all – damn him –
the undertaker's understrapper!
Let him hold the reins
and walk at the side
and inconspicuously too!
Then briefly as to yourselves:
Walk behind – as they do in France,
seventh class, or if you ride
Hell take curtains! Go with some show
of inconvenience; sit openly –
to the weather as to grief.
Or do you think you can shut grief in?
What – from us? We who have perhaps
nothing to lose? Share with us
share with us – it will be money
in your pockets.
Go now
I think you are ready.
– William Carlos Williams (1923)