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[Sara, sitting in bed in a basement dwelling, with stenciled flowers above her head, Warsaw]

Date ca. 1935-37
Location Warsaw Poland
Dimensions Image: 8 x 7 3/4 in. (20.3 x 19.7 cm)
Paper: 10 x 8 1/16 in. (25.4 x 20.5 cm)
Mount: 20 x 16 in. (50.8 x 40.6 cm)
Print medium Photo-Gelatin silver


Vishniac documented the basement dwellings of Warsaw using the scant natural light that trickled through a few narrow, high windows. This required him to shoot during the day, when adults were often out looking for work or peddling their wares and children were sometimes the only inhabitants indoors. This photograph of Sara, one of Vishniac’s most iconic images, was reproduced on charity tins, or tzedakah boxes, and circulated throughout France by Jewish social service organizations, including the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) in the late 1930s.
-- Maya Benton, Curator, Roman Vishniac Rediscovered

Copyright

© Mara Vishniac Kohn

Credit line

Museum Purchase, International Fund for Concerned Photography, 1974

Feedback Accession No. 66.1974