THE BITTER YEARS
1935-1941

The Bitter Years is the last exhibition famous photographer Edward Steichen curated as the Director of the Photography Department of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. It is a testimony to documentary photography, featuring over 200 images from one of the largest collective projects in the history of photography: the documentation of rural America during the Great Depression by the Farm Security Administration (FSA).

Fifty years after its opening at MoMA, The Bitter Years has now found a permanent home in Dudelange, Luxembourg, on the site of a former steel mill, in the stunning Waassertuerm gallery, an old water tower, next to the Centre national de l'audiovisuel (CNA).

Wishing to create a lively platform for discussion and creation around the heritage collection, the CNA combines Steichen's selection of FSA images with temporary photographic exhibitions shown at Pomhouse, the former pumping station adjacent to the water tower. Waassertuerm and Pomhouse thus form a space of dialogue bewteen the historic collection and contemporary image making.

Opening Hours

Wednesday: 12:00 - 6:00

Thursday: 12:00 - 10:00 (free entrance starting 6:00 pm)

Friday: 12:00 - 6:00

Saturday: 12:00 - 6:00

Sunday: 12:00 - 6:00

Closed on Mondays and Tuesdays

Adult admission: 6€

Discount admission: 4€

Free admission for young visitors until the age of 21.

1935. America struggles with the aftermath of the 1929 stock market crash and the subsequent economic recession. Unemployment is as high as 30 percent. The situation is particularly devastating in rural areas of the United States where the land has been eroded by excessive farming and reduced to dust by a persisting draught. Heavy storms transform the former prairie lands of Oklahoma and Arkansas into a barren "dust bowl".

Many farmers lose their properties and are evicted from their homes. They find themselves on the road, hundreds of thousands of migrants looking for a new job, a new start.

To combat rural poverty, President Franklin Roosevelt creates the Resettlement Administration (RA) in 1935 as part of his New Deal policy. The government institution changes its name in 1937 and becomes the Farm Security Administration (FSA).

Within the Farm Security Administration, a historical section is documenting the appalling situation in rural America with the help of a group of photographers. This documentary mission is headed by Roy Stryker, an economist from Columbia University in New York. Over eight years, from 1935 to 1943, the group produces over 250.000 negatives and prints that become emblematic for the Great Depression in the United States.

The FSA file is unique in the history of photography: not only is it the first time that photography is used in such a systematic way to establish an inventory of a situation, but this "great visual encyclopedia of America" is also the largest collective photographic project undertaken by a government administration.

Roy Stryker himself is not a photographer but he works with a talented team that he sends out on missions throughout the country with closely defined scripts. This team is renowned for its collective work, but also for the individual contributions of each of its photographers. Famous "authors" as Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Ben Shahn, Russell Lee or Arthur Rothstein are part of the FSA mission.

From 1935 to 1943 they travel the breadth and width of their country, documenting the rural exodus and the fate of migrant workers in California as well as the daily life in remote parts of the US or monuments and road signs. As a whole, the FSA file constitutes a compelling image collection which has marked the collective visual memory of the Great Depression.

Edward Steichen discovers the Farm Security Administration images in 1938 at the First International Photographic Exhibition in New York's Grand Central Palace. He is fascinated by these images and their capacity to tell a story and trigger emotions. He presents a first selection of the FSA photographs in the prestigious publication US Camera Annual in 1939. He also includes comments from visitors at the 1938 exhibition whose opinions widely differ as they discern communist propaganda as well a shattering account of reality.

For Steichen they are "the most remarkable human documents ever rendered in images". They will stay with him for the rest of his career. They will be the focus of his last exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1962.

For The Bitter Years, Edward Steichen selects some of the most iconic but also the most desperate images from the FSA file, corresponding to the initial goal of the mission: to document and illustrate poverty in order to trigger compassion for the represented subjects, the future beneficiaries of the government programs established by Franklin Roosevelt. At the same time, Steichen depicts courageous, even heroic people through a dramatic scenography and lay out of images, using museum walls similarly to magazine pages.

Steichen wishes for a continuous documentation of the United States and its people. This wish will remain unfulfilled.

The Bitter Years first travels the United States and then also Europe. As the exhibition comes to the end of its journey in 1967, Edward Steichen expresses the wish to see it sent to Luxembourg, his native country, so it can be preserved for the future and shown here. Shortly after their arrival in Luxembourg, the photographs are exhibited in 1968 by the State Museum. Later they will join the collections of the Centre national de l'audiovisuel (CNA) created in 1989 with the mission to preserve and to promote the national film, photography and sound heritage.

At the CNA, the totality of the exhibition artifacts have been digitized, then carefully restored by the expert Sandra Petrillo. Delicate objects, rendered fragile by time and the strains of travel, the photographs mounted directly onto hardwood boards are conserved in archival boxes in the controlled environment of the CNA archive.

Fifty years after its opening at the Museum of Modern Art, The Bitter Years is on view again for the public. The images have lost none of their strength and remain compelling documents of the human condition.

The CNA has carefully investigated the hanging of the exhibition conceived by Edward Steichen for MoMA in New York and the new installation in the stunning setting of the former water tower in Dudelange stresses the gripping aspect of the original lay out.

Thus, in 2012, The Bitter Years represent a unique experience, allowing to explore a pivotal moment in the history of the United States, raising questions about cyclical repetitions and our own time, as well as (re)discovering an unequaled photographic undertaking. Finally, the exhibition gives direct and immediate insight into the creative universe of Edward Steichen, a key figure for the development of photography in the 20th century, whose work as a curator still remains to be explored.

Opening hours
Wednesday :12:00 pm to 6:00 pm
Thrusday: 12:00 pm to 10:00 pm
Friday: 12:00 pm to 6:00 pm
Saturday: 12:00 pm to 6:00 pm
Sunday: 12:00 pm to 6:00 pm

Closed : Mondays and Tuesdays

Adult Entry: 6 €
Free entrance for young visitors until the age of 21

For reservations for guided tours email to:
visites@cna.etat.lu

Contact us:
pomhouse@cna.etat.lu