Aaron Siskind
Jerome, Arizona

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Artist Aaron Siskind (American, 1903–1991)American, 1903–1991

CultureAmerican

Titles

Jerome, Arizona

Date1949

Place depictedJerome, Arizona, United States

MediumGelatin silver print

DimensionsImage: 19 7/16 × 14 1/4 in. (49.4 × 36.2 cm)
Sheet: 19 7/8 × 15 15/16 in. (50.5 × 40.5 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase

Object number72.7

Not on view

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Department

Photography

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionIn the mid-1940s, Siskind moved from the socially conscious documentary photography that had preoccupied him throughout the 1930s to increasingly symbolic and abstract photographs of discarded and found objects. “For the first time in my life subject matter had ceased to be of primary importance,” he wrote in 1945. “Instead, I found myself involved in the relationships of these objects, so much so that these pictures turned out to be deeply moving and personal experiences.” As his photographic subjects became increasingly abstract—often flat surfaces of rusted signs, painted walls, and fragmentary posters— they shared both the look and nonnarrative content of paintings by Siskind’s Abstract Expressionist friends.
Provenance[Latent Image Gallery, Houston]; purchased by MFAH, 1972.
Exhibition History"Touch with Your Eyes, Feel with Your Mind: Surfaces in Contemporary Art," Laguna Gloria Art Museum, February 19–March 27, 1983.

"Evocative Presence: Twentieth Century Photographs in the Museum Collection," The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, February 27–May 1, 1988.

"Contemporary Art and Photography: Spotlight on the Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston," The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, September 30, 2001– February 3, 2002.

"Aaron Siskind: Centennial Celebration," The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, July 3–September 26, 2004.

“A History of Photography II: Selections from the Museum's Collection,” The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, March 17–July 19, 2015.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

verso top left and right rectangular strips of paper tape

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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