Buffalo Spree Magazine

Milton Rogovin:
The Making of a Social Documentary Photographer

By Philip Nyhuis

Chilean mother and child, photographed by Rogovin in 1966. Published in “Windows That Open Inward,” his collaboration with poet Pablo Neruda in 1999.

On a warm June morning this summer, a large truck pulled up in front of a modest bungalow in North Buffalo. While two men unlocked the doors to the truck’s climate-controlled interior, an attractive blonde woman went into the house and spoke with its inhabitants, a man and a woman in their eighties. Within a few hours, the truck was loaded and drove away with one of the most important collections of photographs in the nation.

The blonde woman was Carol Johnson, assistant curator of photography at the Library of Congress; her mission that day was to collect the life’s work of the man in the bungalow and send it to Washington, D.C. where it is now part of the Library’s permanent collection.

The photographer is, of course, Milton Rogovin, the self-described social documentary photographer, whose work joins that of Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Gordon Parks, William Gottlieb, and other famous American photographers in the Library of Congress. At the request of the Library, Rogovin gave the nation all of his photographs.

In his series “Portraits of Steel,” published in 1993, Rogovin photographed workers both at the steel plant and in their homes.

Milton Rogovin: I gave them 1500 photographs, my best quality prints. I also gave them all of my negatives and all the contact sheets, 27 books of them.

Milton Rogovin is the first Buffalo photographer and the first living American photographer since the 1970s to be honored with a place in the Library of Congress. The Library, whose mission is to provide Congress and the American people with both a comprehensive record of American history and creativity and a universal collection of human knowledge, was founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1800 and will celebrate its bicentennial next year. It is now the largest repository of human knowledge in the world.

For Milton Rogovin and his wife Anne, the journey to this temple of art and achievement was both arduous and ironic. In 1957, Rogovin was a respected optometrist with a thriving practice when he was called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, asked to testify about his political beliefs, and provide the names of people he knew who held political views deemed dangerous by the committee. His refusal to do so cost him and his family dearly but it also provided the inspiration for what would become one of the most remarkable careers in American photography.

In 1958, William Tallmadge, a professor of music at Buffalo State College and friend of Rogovin’s, asked him to take some photographs of the congregations whose music he was recording in the storefront churches of Buffalo’s African-American community.

In “Triptychs,” Rogovin photographed residents of Buffalo’s Lower West Side three times over twenty years. These striking photographs of a young man and his grandparents reveal the passage of time through the eye of Rogovin’s camera

MR: As a result of the attacks against me in the newspapers at that time, my optometry practice was almost destroyed. My family suffered quite a bit. I felt my voice was silent. And so I decided to work with my friend because I figured that I could once again speak about the problems of our society, this time through my photography.

In fact, Anne Rogovin was asked to sign a loyalty oath in order to work as a teacher and the Rogovin children were shunned by their schoolmates and harassed by their teachers. In addition, Rogovin came under fire from people in the black community who felt that documenting the storefront churches would reinforce white stereotypes.

MR: When I was almost done with the project, some people in the African-American community said, “Why do you keep doing that? We’ve passed beyond that. Do something else.” But while I was photographing the storefront churches I was reading a book by W.E.B. DuBois called “Souls of the Black Folk.” In the book was a chapter entitled “Religion of Our Fathers” in which DuBois talks about and emphasizes three things that are important in the traditional black church: the preacher, the music, the frenzy or trance. After reading that chapter, I concentrated on those three aspects of the service. The music in the churches was always different. It could be just a harmonica, a drum, or a piano. And the trance was very important. The people would suddenly go into a trance and twirl around. But I was sensitive to the criticism so I wrote to DuBois and asked him, “I’m doing this series, would you mind if I come to see you and show you my work?” He answered me and said “I would be glad to look at your work.” So I went to Brooklyn where he lived and showed him my work. He said, “This is very important, this is part of our tradition and you should continue and complete your work.”

In 1962, Aperture magazine published 48 of Rogovin’s photographs of storefront churches with an introduction by W. E. B. DuBois. The photographs in this series show the trance, the music, and the preacher in vivid and unforgettable black and white images. The series has been exhibited all over the world and is considered by Rogovin to be one of his best works. It also put him on the map as an important American photographer. In that same year, a recording of the music of the storefront churches was produced by William Tallmadge with liner notes that include Rogovin’s photographs. This recording is also in the Library of Congress.

That summer, Milton and Anne traveled to the Appalachian regions of West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky and Milton began photographing miners and their families. This was the beginning of a series that took the Rogovins around the world documenting the faces of the men and women who risk their lives and health to dig out minerals and precious ores from deep within the earth. Over the following two decades, Rogovin went underground to photograph miners in France, Scotland, China, Chile, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Mexico, Spain, and Zimbabwe.

An Appalachian mine worker, at work and at home. Photographed in 1981.

MR: In China, they held an exhibit of the miners I photographed there and in the U.S. When you entered the exhibition hall there was a little table with a pot of ink and some brushes. When the people left they could write in a book in calligraphy what they thought about my work. A couple of months later they sent me the book. It was bound in China, had beautiful embroider designs and was covered with a handsome brocaded cloth. I also gave that book to the Library of Congress with translations by my friend Roger des Forges.

Milton Rogovin speaks quickly and articulately, with the easy inflections and a bit of the impatience of his native New York City. His dress and manner, like the furnishings in his home, are comfortable, informal, unpretentious, curious, and above all, interesting. Anne Rogovin, teacher and author, tries to sit quietly while he speaks, but frequently cannot contain her enthusiasm for the man and his work.

Anne Rogovin: Oh, Milton, tell them about the woman in the photograph and how you found her in the little house on the beach!

In 1966, Rogovin wrote to the celebrated Chilean poet Pablo Neruda and suggested that they collaborate on a work about the poor people of Chile. The work was published in 1999 by White Pine Press as a book entitled “Windows That Open Inward.”

Pablo Neruda: His letter asked me an uncommon question. He wanted to photograph the truth. He arrived quickly, well-equipped and efficient: North American. But he carried much more than his equipment. Eyes patient and searching. A heart sensitive to light, to rain, to shadows. The great photographer immersed himself in the poetry of simplicity and came to the surface with the net full of clear fish and flowers of profundity.

From that series came the picture that may be Rogovin’s most hauntingly beautiful image: a Chilean Madonna and child gazing at us with clear, dark-eyed, unflinching honesty. Surely this was the truth Rogovin had sought to capture.

In the early 70s, Rogovin found himself increasingly restless in his optometry practice and often left his office to take some pictures of the people on the Buffalo’s Lower West Side.

MR: I started going down to the Lower West Side because my office was nearby. My first office was on Chippewa Street when I was partners with my brother. When he retired I moved to the Walbridge Building on Court Street. I worked on the Lower West Side for three years, in just a six-block area. In the beginning it was very tough because people thought I was sent by the police or the welfare department. I would go there two or three times a day sometimes. I started shortening my hour and days at the office. I cut out Saturdays, then Wednesdays, and then I worked from 9 to 4. It wasn’t very good for my patients but it was good for my photography.

Milton Rogovin tells of how he donated years of work and all of his photographs to the Library of Congress.

It was also good for Photography. What began as a project to reveal the lives of the residents of one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods became an astonishing 20-year association between a photographer and his subjects culminating in the publication of the book “Triptychs.” Here we see individuals and families photographed three times over the two decades, revealing a wealth of information about American culture, aging, poverty, pride, perseverance, wit, grace, strength, and love.

For his next project, Rogovin returned to the invisible working person, this time the one working in his own backyard, the Buffalo steelworker. Like the miners, America’s steelworkers worked in relative anonymity under dangerous and demanding conditions found in few other jobs. In 1993, “Portraits in Steel” was published by Cornell University Press.

MR: I wanted to do a series in the steel plants and photograph the people who do the tough work. It occurred to me that I should try to shoot the steelworkers both at work and at home. It seems like a simple concept but no one had ever done it. Most workers were happy to have me come to their homes, especially when they knew I was going to give them a photograph. I started at Atlas and then went to the Republic, Bethlehem and Chenango steel plants. I never asked any questions. I had decided not to take up too much time of the working person because he had to produce a certain amount each day and if I brought the usual umbrellas and paraphernalia, it would have taken half an hour just to set it up. I wouldn’t take more than 4 shots and I was finished. Because I didn’t have time to measure, I would correct any errors I had made in the darkroom.

In addition to the Library of Congress, Milton Rogovin’s work is in the collections of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Burchfield-Penny Art Center, Cleveland Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, International Museum of Photography and Film at George Eastman House, Museum of Modern Art, and the Getty Center in Los Angeles. Discussions are currently underway with the Amon Carter Museum of Western Art in Fort Worth.

Anne Rogovin shares in her husband’s passion for photography and poetry.

MR: I always felt that my work should be high quality. I wanted to do the poor people with the same quality the rich people got, because to me they’re just as important. It’s amazing just how interesting each one of these people is. Anne and I don’t talk to them too much but we get to know them during the photography. Many of these people have tremendous qualities.

In May of this year, the Rogovins, their children and grandchildren traveled to Washington, D.C. as guests of the Library of Congress, where Milton gave a lecture, “The Making of a Social Documentary Photographer.” Milton Rogovin’s current projects include an autobiography and the organization of an exhibit of his Cuban photographs in collaboration with the Cuban poet Nancy Morijon.

MR: Right now we’re trying to organize an exhibit in New York City and then the same exhibit in Cuba. They’re playing baseball, why not photographs?

Milton Rogovin no longer takes pictures. But he is writing poetry, inspired by the subjects of his photographs.

MR: I closed my darkroom downstairs and sold my camera. At 89 I’ve had enough. But photography is a wonderful life. It’s given me the opportunity to show what many people never see.”

Just as Milton Rogovin begins talking about his poetry, Anne interrupts: Oh, Milton, read some of your poems!

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