Workers Place a New Wellhead, Oil Well, Kuwait
| Artist | Sebastião Salgado (Brazilian, born 1944) |
|---|---|
| Title | Workers Place a New Wellhead, Oil Well, Kuwait |
| Date | 1991 |
| Medium | Gelatin silver print |
| Dimensions | Image: 11 3/4 × 17 3/8 in. (29.8 × 44.1 cm) Sheet: 15 3/4 × 19 5/8 in. (40 × 49.8 cm) |
| Credit Line | Gift of Dr. Jane Fortune, Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University |
| Accession Number | 2019.33 |
| This artwork is currently off display. You may be able to see this artwork by filling out an art viewing room request. | |
Two workers in hard hats stand in the rain on either side of an oil well, one facing away from it and one standing in knee-high water with a hand on the well. They are covered in oil. Behind them is a desolate landscape with a fire burning in the distance.
When American forces pushed the Iraqi Army out of Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm, Saddam Hussein undertook a “scorched earth” policy burning about seven hundred oil wells, thus creating one of the worst environmental disasters in history. Sebastião Salgado was quickly on the scene to document the brave men who were fighting these dangerous fires. Our first works by Salgado, these photographs show men covered in black oil, resembling both heroic bronze statues and souls emerging from hell. Although the situation was also hazardous for photographers and journalists, Salgado warned, “We must remember that in the brutality of battle another such apocalypse is always just around the corner.”
Provenance research is ongoing for this and many other items in the Eskenazi Museum of Art permanent collection. For more information about the provenance of this artwork, please contact the department curator with specific questions.
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"Workers Place a New Wellhead, Oil Well, Kuwait | Collections Online." Collections Online. Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University, 2025. https://artmuseum.indiana.edu/collections-online/browse/object.php?number=2019.33