The Portrait

This print viewing introduces students to a range of photographs with a focus on portraiture where visual information such as setting, clothing, body language, and facial expression speak to the identity of the subject. Choices made by the photographer such as use of vantage point, lighting, framing, timing and composition also impact the viewer’s perception of the subject.

Artist: Alec Soth Title: Patrick, Palm Sunday, Baton Rouge, LA Date: 2002 Medium: Chromogenic Development Print Dimensions: Frame: 26 in x 30 in x ¾ in Image: 16 in x 20 in Credit Line: Gift of the Artist Arbus, Diane American, 1923-1971

Among the most prominent and influential photographers of her generation, Diane Arbus is perhaps best remembered for her frank studies of marginalized groups and subcultures. Yet in addition to the nudists, transvestites, carnival performers, and the cognitively-impaired or developmentally-delayed residents of asylums, Arbus also created odd and quirky photographs of socialites, celebrities, and anonymous strangers passing through New York's streets and parks. For instance, Arbus photographed regularly at Coney Island in the 1950s, producing such pictures as Two Girls in Matching Bathing Suits, Coney Island, N.Y. Arbus began her career in the 1950s as a fashion photographer in New York. BY the late 1950s, she began to study with Lisette Model and fully develop the style she would become known for. There is a strong connection between her magazine assignments and her personal work, and many of her most famous images were created for or published in magazines. Her first published photographs appeared in Esquire in 1960, she was awarded Guggenheim Fellowships in 1963 and 1966, and the Museum of Modern Art showed her work in 1964 and 1967. Arbus died in 1971.

Title: Hermaphrodite and a dog in a carnival trailer, Maryland Date: 1970 Medium: Gelatin Silver Print Dimensions: 20 in x 16 in Credit Line: Gift of Larry Deutsch

Title: Two Girls in Matching Bathing Suits, Coney Island, N.Y. Date: 1967 Medium: Gelatin Silver Print Dimensions: Image: 14 in x 14 in Paper: 16 in x 20 in Credit Line: Museum Purchase Bey, Dawoud American, b. 1953 Dawoud Bey is interested in the portrait as a site of psychological and emotional engagement between the photographer and his model. Bey's interest in photography was sparked when, at age 15, he attended the Metropolitan Museum of Art's exhibition Harlem On My Mind, unusual to Bey in that it featured African-American subjects and included the work of African-American photographers as James VanDerZee. The experience became part of the inspiration for Bey's very first series, Harlem, USA, begun in 1975. Completed in 1979, the Harlem, USA pictures constituted Bey's first solo exhibition (at the Studio Museum in Harlem) and first publication. In these portraits made on the street with a large format camera, we see residents of Harlem—a barber, musician, cook, ladies going to church—rendered by Bey, whose family was from Harlem, with keen attention to photographic technique including precise composition and use of existing light. Bey revisited the series in 2005, working from original negatives and vintage prints to produce ten of the original images as a portfolio of carbon pigment prints. The new prints are the same size as those shown in 1979 at the Studio Museum, and this marks their first printing since their original exhibition. The MoCP holds a portfolio of works from this series. Made in 1988 for a series he calls Street Portraits, in A Boy Eating a Foxy Pop, Bey continues his practice of creating precisely-composed portraits on the street with a view camera.

In 1993 the MoCP commissioned Bey to serve as a resident artist at Providence St. Mel High School in Chicago. There Bey set up a studio and photographed young people of color with a Polaroid 20x24 view camera, often presenting the work as diptychs and triptychs such as in the image Sharmaine, Vicente, Joseph, Andre, and Charlie, 1993. The MoCP’s holdings of Bey’s work also include a portrait of President Barack Obama made in 2006 when he was still a Senator as well as recent work from Bey’s Birmingham Project. Bey created this project to commemorate 50th anniversary of the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham Alabama, which tragically resulted in the deaths of six African American teens. You may view the MoCP’s complete holdings of works by Bey here.

Title: A Boy Eating a Foxy Pop Date: 1988 Medium: Gelatin Silver Print Dimensions: Image: 9 ¼ in x 12 in Paper: 11 in x 14 in Credit Line: Purchase through Museum Fine Print Program Lee, Nikki S. U.S. resident, b. 1970 Korea

After observing particular subcultures and ethnic groups, Nikki S. Lee adopts their general style and attitude through dress, gesture, and posture, and then approaches the group in her new guise. She introduces herself as an artist (though not everyone believes her or takes it seriously), and then spends several weeks participating in the group's routine activities and social events while a friend or member of the group photographs her with an ordinary automatic "snapshot" camera. Lee maintains control of the final image, however, insofar as she chooses when to ask for a picture and edits what photographs will eventually be displayed. Lee emigrated from South Korea to American to study fashion and photography in college. This experience made her very aware of her process of assimilation as aspects of her life and appearance changed, while others stayed the same.

From schoolgirl to senior citizen, punk to yuppie, rural white American to urban Hispanic, Lee's personas traverse age, lifestyle, and culture. Part sociologist and part performance artist, Lee infiltrates these groups so convincingly that in individual photographs it is difficult to distinguish her from the crowd. However, when photographs from the projects are grouped together, it is Lee's own Korean ethnicity, drawn like a thread through each scenario, which reveals her subtle ruse.

Lee's projects propose questions regarding identity and social behavior as well as the truthfulness of photography. To what degree is identity self-determined? How are we viewed and identified by other people? Is it possible for us to move between cultures? How does how we present ourselves to the camera impact what others may learn from our image? Lee believes that "essentially life itself is a performance. When we change our clothes to alter our appearance, the real act is the transformation of our way of expression—the outward expression of our psyche."

Title: The Yuppie Project #4 Date: 1998 Medium: Chromogenic Development Print Dimensions: Frame: 22 in x 29 in x 1 ½ in Image: 15 ¾ in x 23 ½ in Credit Line: Museum Purchase Title: The Skateboarders Project #7 Date: 2000 Medium: Chromogenic Development Print Dimensions: Frame: 31 in x 41in x 1 ½ in Image: 24 ¾ in x 33 ½ in Credit Line: Museum Purchase

Title: The Hispanic Project #18 Date: 1998 Medium: Chromogenic Development Print Dimensions: Frame: 22 in x 29 in x 1 ½ in Image: 15 ¾ in x 23 ½ in Credit Line: Museum Purchase Nixon, Nicholas American, b. 1947 Detroit, MI

Since 1975, Nicholas Nixon has photographed his wife and her three sisters producing a single photograph each year featuring the sisters in the same order (youngest to oldest from left to right) though at various locations along the East Coast. From left to right we see Heather, Mimi, Bebe (Nixon's wife), and Laurie as they change and grow from year to year in image after image. The Brown Sisters series functions as an ever-evolving portrait of the siblings and their relationship to one another over time. Nixon has created portraits of a range of subjects throughout his career including AIDS patients, the very elderly, and his wife and children, always photographing with an 8x10 view camera to capture the precise detail that provide clues as to his subjects’ age, mood, and the era in which the image was made.

Title: Heather Brown McCann, Mimi Brown, Bebe Brown Nixon, Laurie Brown Date: 1979 Medium: Gelatin Silver Print Dimensions: Paper: 8 in x 10 in Image: 7 ¾ in x 9 13/16 in Credit Line: Museum Purchase Title: The Brown Sisters, Ipswich, Massachusetts Date: 1982 Medium: Gelatin Silver Print Dimensions: Mat: 16 in x 20 in Paper: 8 in x 9 7/8 in Credit Line: Museum Purchase w/ matching funds from the National Endowment for the Arts

Title: The Brown Sisters, Brookline, Massachusetts Date: 1999 Medium: Gelatin Silver Print Dimensions: Image: 7 ½ in x 9 ½ in Mat: 16 in x 20 in Paper: 8 in x 10 in Credit Line: Museum Purchase

Title: The Brown Sisters, Brighton, Massachusetts Date: 1985 Medium: Gelatin Silver Print Dimensions: Paper: 8 in x 9 7/8 in Credit Line: Museum Purchase Soth, Alec American, b.1969

Alec Soth's series, Sleeping by the Mississippi, contains images rich in symbolism, touching upon the themes of adventure and home. Lurking below the surface of his images are issues particular to the history of this corridor of the country: slavery, economic boom and bust, and a deep religious undercurrent. The river, symbolically a place of baptism and renewal, serves as a metaphor for Soth's photographic pursuits. As he drifts from one location to another, he documents rituals–-spiritual and secular, private and public-–that he finds along the way, from portraits of devout prison inmates and parishioners on Palm Sunday to mantelpieces adorned with family photographs and pictures of religious and political icons. Sleeping by the Mississippi was Soth’s first major body of work. Subsequent series such as Niagara, further illustrate Soth’s brooding and somewhat detached style and have established Soth as one of the most influential documentary photographers of the contemporary era.

Title: Sunshine, Memphis, TN Date: 2000 Medium: Chromogenic Development Print Dimensions: Frame: 26 in x 30 in x ¾ in Image: 16 in x 20 in Credit Line: Museum Purchase

Title: Patrick, Palm Sunday, Baton Rouge, LA Date: 2002 Medium: Chromogenic Development Print Dimensions: Frame: 26 in x 30 in x ¾ in Image: 16 in x 20 in Credit Line: Gift of the Artist Davis, Jen American, b. 1978

Since 2002 years Jennifer Davis has worked on a series of self-portraits that explore body image, beauty and identity. Davis says “Originally, I wanted to see what the outside world saw when they looked at me,” These earlier images often show Davis in moments where she feels self-conscious of her weight or judged such as eating a meal or sitting on the beach in a bathing suit with thin friends. The project transforms over time as Davis portrays her fantasies and then a more relaxed and sensual self as she appears more confident in her body image.

Title: Fantasy No. 1 Date: 2005 Medium: Chromogenic Development Print Dimensions: Image: 18 in x 22 in Paper: 20 in x 24 in Credit Line: Gift of the artist and Lee Marks Gallery Title: Seconds Date: 2003 Medium: Chromogenic Development Print Dimensions: Image: 18 in x 22 in Paper: 20 in x 24 in Credit Line: Museum Purchase

Title: Untitled No. 11 Date: 2003 Medium: Chromogenic Development Print Dimensions: Image: 18 in x 22 in Paper: 20 in x 24 in Credit Line: Museum Purchase Grannan, Katy American, b. 1969

Exploring the American West as a place that promises big dreams and infinite possibilities, portrait photographer Katy Grannan creates photographs of Californians whom she calls “new pioneers”: individuals who exist on the fringe of ordinary society and have chosen to move across the country to Los Angeles or San Francisco seeking a new life in the progressive enclaves of these two west-coast cities. Themes of rebirth and the instability of identity run deeply through multiple pictures of sitters that alternately appear adrift, comical, or withdrawn.

The image Nicky, (U.S.M.C.) Presidio, from the series The Westerns is a portrait of a transsexual who served as a United States Marine Corps soldier when she was a man. Though Grannan met the majority of her subjects on the streets of Los Angeles and San Francisco, she found Nicky on the Internet, and photographed her, as well as others in the series, over the course of three years. Nicky’s willingness to open up to the camera in spite of visual flaws illustrates what drew Grannan to many of the subjects in her project: a “courage to be born one way, and feel alienated from one's own body, and then live openly as someone new.”

Title: Nicky, (U.S.M.C.), Presidio, from the Elton John AIDS Foundation Photography Portfolio 1 Date: 2005 Medium: Digital Pigment Print Dimensions: Paper: 20 in x 24 in Image: 18 2/5 in x 23 in Credit Line: Museum Purchase Van der Zee, James American, 1886-1983

Born in Lennox, Massachusetts, James Van Der Zee settled in New York City in 1916 and established the Guarantee Photo Studio in Harlem shortly afterward. The studio brought him immediate commercial success as a portrait photographer, and over the next two decades he photographed numerous members of the Harlem community during the height of the Harlem Renaissance. Van Der Zee portrayed his subjects as they chose to be represented and remembered through photography. Van Der Zee portrayed his subjects as they chose to be represented and remembered through photography often working with them to select clothing, objects, props and elaborate backgrounds that reflect among other things fashion trends, religious and political affiliations, and social standing. Van der Zee’s work is noted for showing the emergence of an African-American middle class.

In addition to photographing individuals and families, Van der Zee photographed weddings, funerals, clubs, and school groups. He also photographed celebrities. As the official photographer for Marcus Garvey, Van Der Zee captured numerous Universal Negro Improvement Association members posing in their military-like garb.

Title: A Member of Garvey’s African Legion w/ His Family Date: 1924 Medium: Gelatin Silver Print Dimensions: 7 ¾ in x 9 ½ in Credit Line: Museum Purchase Skrebneski, Victor American, b.1929

Chicago-based photographer Victor Skrebneski is known for his high-styled and glamorous fashion and advertising photography, for sensuous and sculptural nude studies, and for casually elegant portraits of friends and the famous. Working in the tradition of studio photography, Skrebneski employs photographic technique such as precise use of composition, framing, and artificial light as well as body language, clothing and objects to create visually arresting images.

Title: Bette Davis, Actor, 08 November Los Angelos Studio Date: 1971 Printed: 1998 Medium: Gelatin Silver Print Dimensions: Image: 12 in x 13 5/8 in Paper: 16 in x 20 in Credit Line: Gift of the Artist Schneider, Gary American, b. 1954 South Africa

Gary Schneider is known for his inventive portraits that extend beyond the figure in front of the camera into the elemental nature of the individual. Examining questions of identity and its complicated relationship to portraiture, Schneider has been photographing the hands of his friends, family, and colleagues since 1996. Using the photogram technique, he has his subjects place their hands directly on the film he exposes in the darkroom. Each individual’s flesh, sweat and oils in the skin, and body heat combine to determine the imprint. The photographic emulsion registers the crevices and fissures in each hand, while unique pressure points form dark tonal passages. Schneider guides his subjects to press their hands down firmly on the paper, counting the exposure time out loud. The resulting portrait is a unique collaboration between artist, subject, and process.

Title: Denise Date: 1998 Medium: Gelatin Silver Print Dimensions: Image: 8 in x 10 in Mat: 16 in x 20 in Paper: 8 in x 10 in Credit Line: Museum Purchase through Fine Print Program Mapplethorpe, Robert American, 1946-1989

Known for creating works that were risqué and unexpected, Mapplethorpe's works deal not only with the exploration of sexuality as self-image in the late twentieth century but also the contradictions inherent in the classical depiction of the human form. Though infamous in the 1980s for his homoerotic nude studies that seemed to straddle the fine line between art and pornography, Robert Mapplethorpe also spent a significant portion of his career creating self-portraits, including the below image, and traditional floral still lifes. Mapplethorpe is remembered by many for being at the center of the 1989 National Endowment for the Arts controversy over the funding and exhibition of art that challenged the accepted social and sexual mores of the time. Mapplethorpe, however, is also recognized for his aesthetic accomplishments, which include a type of highly stylized image that sleekly packages a quite personal and intimate vision.

Title: Untitled (Self Portrait), PD437 Date: 1982 Medium: Gelatin Silver Print Dimensions: Image: 3 ½ in x 4 ½ in Mat: 11 in x 14 in Credit Line: Museum Purchase w/ Funds Provided by Sari & James Klein Lawson, Deana American, b. 1979

Deanna Lawson’s images negotiate issues of identity, sexuality, family, and spirituality through the examination of the body. Collaborating with the strangers she depicts, Lawson creates staged portraits informed by the materiality and aesthetics of black culture across the globe. Inspired by her own family albums in conversation the tradition of figurative portraiture, Lawson’s work combines both formal and informal aesthetics. Often photographing her subjects in their homes, Lawson is interested in in creating a sense of intimacy with her subjects and the environments they inhabit.

Title: Coulson Family Date: 2008 Medium: Inkjet Print Dimensions: Image: 7 ½ in x 10 in Mat: 16 in x 20 in Credit Line: Museum Purchase Portraiture: Questions for Looking and Discussion

How can identity be revealed in a portrait?

• Describe what you see when you look at the image. Where does your eye go first? Why?

• What is the subject’s relationship to the other elements in the photograph such as other people, the environment we find him or her in, or objects within the scene? What do we learn from these details?

• Are there clues in the image that suggest when and where this portrait might have been made?

• What moods or feelings are expressed in this portrait? How?

• What can you tell about how this picture was made? Consider the visual strategies used by the artist such as use of light, time of day, vantage point, framing and composition, scale, presentation, etc.

• Do you think the photographer happened upon this scene or might he or she have planned this image and provided some direction to the subject?

• What do we learn about the subject by looking at this photograph? What details reveal that information?

• What do we know to be true? What assumptions might we have made?