‘30s-Era Photos Depict Hardships and Courage

Despite its legacy as an epic national tragedy, the Great Depression did provide us with a classic bank of images. Photographers, sanctioned as photojournalists (such as Ojai-based Horace Bristol) or as government-sponsored documentarians under the WPA (Works Progress Administration), found in the hardships--economic and social--a wealth of subject matter and a source of empathy and courage, the stuff of metaphors.

That body of work is now etched in the national consciousness, and it also stands as an example of the ways in which reportage and fine art can mesh.

Among her peers, Marion Post Wolcott is lesser known than Dorothea Lange or Walker Evans, but over the last several years her work has gained increasing renown. As seen in the modest but potent collection of pieces now at the Carnegie Art Museum, her work deserves a closer look and a bolder profile in the photography world.

Wolcott, who lived in Santa Barbara for many years until her death in 1990, was shooting pictures during the ‘30s. She worked tirelessly in the fields of the South under the Farm Security Administration project, one of the few women who braved life in a male-dominated field. She then virtually abandoned photography to raise a family, picking up the medium again later in life.

But her compassionate, keenly observed and sometimes ironic images from the ‘30s continue to fascinate, ever more so as time goes by. One of Wolcott’s distinguishing characteristics was her willingness to cross social barriers and draw parallels and contrasts in the lives of the haves and have-nots.

She depicts, for instance, an image of a black child next to an ex-slave who is missing fingers, lounging in a rickety chair and leaning up against a shack: unadulterated innocence and the aftermath of a life spent in unceremonious toil and incarceration. Next to that image is leisure of a different sort--a white country club patron in Miami being served brunch. Wolcott shoots the scene from an overhead angle, as if peering voyeuristically into a life sheltered from the economic strife of the times.

She captured pristine moments, making the passage of time a poignant subtext. Laundry flaps in the breeze as kids loiter on the porch near their careworn father in Sunset Village, an FSA project in Radford, Va., for defense workers. In another scene, a black tenant farmer’s children walk down a dirt road, one bowlegged from rickets.

A well-known photograph of Wolcott’s depicts well-dressed white women picnicking on the beach in Sarasota, next to their bulbous car. In another corner of society altogether, we find Jorena Pettway, a black woman, sorting peas in a tight cupboard space, its shelves lined with canned vegetables, the results of her labor.

The cramped setting is either claustrophobic or womb-like, depending on your perspective. Wolcott leaves it open to interpretation, as was her wont, letting the judgments fall where they may. Through her lens, Wolcott saw humanity in all its complexities, and pure visual splendor, in the humblest and most lavish of places.

All in the Details: In the upstairs gallery at the Carnegie, watercolorist Margaret Huddy exhibits clever, affectionate architectural renderings. Huddy’s show bears the title “Great Gods!” for a reason: Her interest is less in the grandeur and sweep of the ancient cathedrals and other structures she paints than in the fine details--the gargoyles, sensuous figures and religious icons ornamenting the edifices. Her eye is on the sidelines.

Huddy’s light-sensitive architectural appreciations are usually seen in extreme close-up, selectively cropped and with oblique angles that give them a skewed, slightly irrational edge. By fixing her gaze on the periphery of these buildings, Huddy offers a more human-scaled vision of what architecture can signify.

“Contemplating Buddha” is just that, a contemplation of the icon and not the hosting temple. “Lex at the Supreme Court” focuses on the magisterial sculptural figure on the grand stairway, raked with late-afternoon sunlight, which accentuates his form.

This show is at least somewhat timely and topical, taking place as it does in the Carnegie’s dramatic neoclassical structure. The museum, originally part of the chain of libraries built around the turn of the century, is celebrating its 90th birthday, which makes it venerable by Southern California standards.

Local Colorations: In the local artists gallery, Linda Abbott shows her sensitively observed landscapes, regional scenes that manage to change one’s view of the region. She’s a gifted plein-air impressionist who portrays, say, the Oxnard shore or Wheeler Gorge with a dreamy gauziness, all soft edges and mild washes of light. Such is the effect of impressive regional landscape art: You wish you were there, and then realize that you could be in mere minutes.

DETAILS

* WHAT: “Great Gods! Architectural Watercolors by Margaret Huddy,” “Time in a Box: The Photographs of Marion Post Wolcott,” through Nov. 24, and “Painting Alfresco: Landscapes by Linda Abbott,” through Oct. 28.

* WHERE: The Carnegie Art Museum, 424 S. C St. in Oxnard.

* WHEN: Gallery hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Thursday and Saturday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday, 1-5 p.m., Sunday.

* CALL: 385-8157