[Perfume Bottles]

Bourke-White regularly took on commercial jobs in the early 1930s, which paid more than journalism. The story behind this print is remarkable: Bourke-White took it when the donor’s father, a chemist and amateur perfumer, came to her studio on a business trip to New York in 1935. In showing samples to some New York cosmetic firms he was told, “This is America. You want to sell products? You need a brochure.” This advice led him by chance to Bourke-White’s Chrysler Building studio. The Eisner family fled Berlin when Hitler came to power in 1933, relocated to Spain and South America during the war, and moved to America in 1947. The photograph moved with them, although the brochure was never made. Dr. Thomas Eisner (1929–2011), the son and donor of these photographs, was a professor of biology at Cornell. (“Margaret Bourke-White: From Cornell Student to Visionary Photojournalist,” curated by Stephanie Wiles and presented at the Johnson Museum January 24 – June 7, 2015)