- Swan Dream
Mount: 10 15/16 × 8 5/8 in. (27.8 × 21.9 cm)
Explore Further
Since the late 1960s, Bea Nettles has been among the vanguard of photographers using alternative processes and mixed media. At the time, few textbooks or classes gave instruction on making photographs beyond standard black-and-white gelatin silver prints. Nettles said, “Because I had no clear directions to follow or was not given a demonstration, I broke the rules.” In Swan Dream, a collage of swans and a blurred self-portrait combine to create a surreal, otherworldly image. The couch and quilt have been hand-colored, further contributing to Nettles’s handmade aesthetic in this curious, dreamlike composition.
ProvenanceThe artist, Urbana, Illinois; purchased by MFAH, 1976.
Exhibition History"New Realities: From Collage to Digital," The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, February 25 - May 11, 1998
"Target Collection of American Photography: A Century in Pictures",
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston December 3 - February 25, 2007
Austin Museum of Art May 19 - August 12, 2007
Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi June 5 - August 24, 2008
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Cataloguing data may change with further research.
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