The Portrait

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.

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