Canadian National Railway, Hostler and Locomotive Number 8403, Class U-ID 4-8-2 on Turntable, Hamilton, Ontario
1959, printed later
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
inkjet print
Dimensions
image: 33.6 × 28 cm (13 1/4 × 11 in.) sheet: 48.26 × 33.02 cm (19 × 13 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of David Plowden
Accession Number
2023.59.71
Art Historical Context
In 1959, American photographer David Plowden a poignant moment in the twilight of the steam locomotive era with *Canadian National Railway, Host and Locomotive Number 3, Class U-ID 4-8-2 on Turntable, Hamilton,*. This inkjet print, made later from the original negative, a hostler— a skilled yard worker— maneuvering the massive 4-8-2 "Mountain" class engine on a turntable in Hamilton's rail yards. Plowden, renowned for his black-and-white documentation of America's industrial landscapes, immortalizes the raw power and human scale of these behemoths just as diesel engines were eclipsing them. T...
About the Artist
David Plowden
David Plowden, born on October 9, 1932, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Roger Stanley Plowden and Mary Russell Butler, grew up primarily in New York City with time spent in Putney, Vermont. He attended the Putney School, graduating in 1951, and earned a BA in economics from Yale University in 1955. His passion for photography ignited early; at age eleven, his mother gave him a Brownie reflex camera, ...