Oversight

Went to the closing of an exhibition of Horace Bristol’s photographs at the East West Gallery in Santa Barbara this week. The gallery—a great, small space—just opened a couple months ago and is run by Bristol’s son, Henri. I didn’t really even recognize Bristol by name, but when I walked into the gallery, I knew immediately who he was. His Tom Joad was on the cover of one of my copies of The Grapes of Wrath. Bristol took the photo during his travels with John Steinbeck to the migrant camps of the Central Valley of California, for what was to be a nonfiction book pairing Steinbeck’s words and Bristol’s photos. Instead, Steinbeck turned the stories of the migrant workers into a novel, and high school kids have been reading the CliffsNotes ever since.

Copyright © Horace Bristol

It was my extreme oversight not to include Bristol’s name in my earlier post about Matt Black’s work; to see some of Bristol’s photographs, click here.

P.S. I took this picture of a eucalyptus tree this afternoon in Toro Canyon.

Copyright © 2007 Liz Kuball