Ilene Segalove
Close But No Cigar

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Artist Ilene Segalove (American, born 1950)American, born 1950

CultureAmerican

Titles

Close But No Cigar

Date1975

PlaceUnited States

MediumGelatin silver prints with applied color

DimensionsImage (each): 29 3/16 × 19 1/2 in. (74.1 × 49.5 cm)
Sheet (each): 29 3/16 × 19 1/2 in. (74.1 × 49.5 cm)
Mount (each): 29 3/16 × 19 1/2 in. (74.1 × 49.5 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by Gay Block and Photography Accessions Funds

Object number92.188.A-.H

Not on view

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Department

Photography

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionIn Close But No Cigar,
Ilene Segalove humorously re-creates portraits of notable figures from Western
history: Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, one of the inventors of photography;
Barbie, the sexualized but sexless archetype of 1960s womanhood; the
17th-century English physicist Sir Isaac Newton; and the warrior saint Joan of
Arc. Using appropriation and mimicry (key strategies of Postmodern art that
would soon be adopted by Sherrie Levine, Cindy Sherman, Richard Prince, and
others), Segalove tries out various roles, none of which seems to fit quite right,
an apt metaphor for a generation unsure of its own identity.
ProvenanceThe artist; purchased by MFAH, 1992.
Exhibition History"Why I Got Into TV and Other Stories: The Art of Ilene Segalove, Laguna Art Museum, April 27–July 8, 1990 and other venues through October 1991.

"Contemporary Art and Photography: Spotlight on the Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston," MFAH, Upper Brown Pavilion, September 30, 2001 - February 3, 2002.

"Ruptures and Continuities: Photography Made after 1960 from the MFAH Collection," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Brown Foundation Galleries, February 21 - May 9, 2010.

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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