Aaron Siskind
Kentucky

Kentucky

© Courtesy of the Aaron Siskind Foundation

Kentucky
Kentucky
ArtistAmerican, 1903–1991
CultureAmerican
Titles
  • Kentucky
Date1951
PlaceKentucky, United States
MediumGelatin silver print
DimensionsImage: 10 1/16 × 12 7/8 in. (25.6 × 32.7 cm)
Sheet: 11 × 13 15/16 in. (27.9 × 35.4 cm)
Credit LineThe Allan Chasanoff Photographic Collection
Object number91.1094
Not on view

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Department
Photography
Object Type
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 non-narrative content of paintings by Siskind’s Abstract Expressionist friends.
ProvenanceAllan Chasanoff, New York; given to MFAH, 1991.
Exhibition History"Aaron Siskind: Centennial Celebration," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, July 3–September 26, 2004.

"The Marzio Years: Transforming the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1982–2010," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, October 25, 2020–January 10, 2021.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Marked below image, recto, left: "Kentucky 1951"; right below image: "Aaron Siskind"
See inscription information.

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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