The Republican National Convention at the Kemper Arena in Kansas City was my first political convention as a CBS correspondent. I was thinking only one thing: don't blow it! So I was a little impatient up there on the film box waiting for the cue, and a little worried. My ambition was to be a political reporter, so I felt like Seabiscuit before his first big race. So much was riding on that day. Girls do get floor passes even if they wear glasses (Leslie Stahl)
1976
Bill Owens
Bill Owens (American, b. 1938)
Photography
Working: The Republican National Convention at the Kemper Arena in Kansas City was my first political convention as a CBS correspondent. I was thinking only one thing: don't blow it! So I was a little impatient up there on the film box waiting for the cue, and a little worried. My ambition was to be a political reporter, so I felt like Seabiscuit before his first big race. So much was riding on that day. Girls do get floor passes even if they wear glasses (Leslie Stahl), 1976. Bill Owens (American, b. 1938). Gelatin silver print; image: 15.8 x 23.2 cm (6 1/4 x 9 1/8 in.); paper: 20.2 x 25.2 cm (7 15/16 x 9 15/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of George Stephanopoulos 2019.295 In his examination of people’s attitudes towards their jobs, Owens gives us the subjects’ own words to accompany his images of them. The series was not as much a critique as a mirror that allowed people some distance from which to view their situation. This and his other projects conveyed both the comfort of suburban middle-class life and an undercurrent of dissatisfaction and disillusionment with it. There was a serious decline in job satisfaction in America in the last half of the 1970s.
- Maker/Artist
- Owens, Bill
- Classification
- Photograph
- Formatted Medium
- gelatin silver print
- Dimensions
- Image: 15.8 x 23.2 cm (6 1/4 x 9 1/8 in.); Paper: 20.2 x 25.2 cm (7 15/16 x 9 15/16 in.)
- Inscribed
- Inscription: Written in pencil on verso: “V0048/5500” Inscription: Stamped in black ink on verso: “BILL OWENS/PHOTOGRAPHER/268 YOSEMITE DR./LIVERMORE, CA 94550” Inscription: Written in black ink on verso: “Toon [crossed out]/To much” Inscription: Written in black ink on verso: “10 (circled)” Inscription: Written in black marker on verso: “KC 37A” Inscription: Written in black ink on verso: “© Bill Owens/Jeroboam, Inc.” Inscription: Written in black ink on verso: “Bill Owens (signed)” Inscription: Written in black ink on verso: “Media Maker-Audial” Inscription: Written in red ink on verso: “BO197-9/82” Inscription: Commercially imprinted throughout verso: “Agfa”
- Departments
- Photography
- Accession Number
- 2019.295
- Credit Line
- Gift of George Stephanopoulos
- Rights Statement
- Copyrighted
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