Evelyn Barker

This coffee table book features the photographs of Polly Smith, the sole photographer providing promotional photographs of the state of Texas for the centennial celebration in 1936. Through a confluence of personal connections and talent, Smith, a newly trained photographer in her late 20s living in Austin, was put under contract with the centennial committee to travel across the state of Texas fulfilling shots needed for the huge amount of publicity material going out to convince people to come to Fair Park in Dallas for the big exposition. Smith was under a tight 8 month deadline, but she came through, showing a flair for artistic composition and an untiring drive to bring in the needed shots. The book is nicely published with a series of essays at the beginning giving some history of the centennial, Smith and her family, and Texas during the 1930s. The bulk of the book is devoted to Smith's photographs and captions. The photography is interesting and nicely done, although frequently straightforward as you might expect for promotional shots. Smith's story and her work for the centennial exposition are so fascinating that I wish they had gotten more space in the book and that the pictures illustrating that section had been given a little more room on the page. Still, this is an enjoyable look at Texas in the 1930s and an intriguing and independent Texas artist.… (meer)