Aaron Siskind
Kentucky

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

Special Collections

Allan Chasanoff Photographic Collection

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 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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