PHOTOGRAPHS
White, Minor
U.S. (1908 - 1976)
Street Arrows, San Francisco
1949
Gelatin silver print
10 1/2 x 8 3/8 in. (26.7 x 21.3 cm) image size;13 7/8 x 10 15/16 in. (35.3 x 27.8 cm) sheet size
Joseph and Elaine Monsen Photography Collection, gift of Joseph and Elaine Monsen and The Boeing Company
FA 97.295

Minor White’s juxtaposition of white arrows on dark pavement illustrates the order imposed on the landscape by automobile traffic. Between the years 1945 and 1955, new automobile production in Detroit went from 70,000 to 8,000,000. This shift in popular transportation brought with it a new set of road and parking rules, made necessary by the sheer increase in drivers. Though we take such signs and arrows for granted, they were just becoming part of a new urban code at the time Minor White created Street Arrows, San Francisco.

-- Label copy for Shifting Ground: Transformed Views of the American Landscape, February 10 to August 20, 2000.