Catherine Wagner
Blastoderm

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Artist Catherine Wagner American, born 1953

CultureAmerican

Titles

Blastoderm

Date1998

MediumInkjet print

DimensionsImage: 22 × 15 15/16 in. (55.9 × 40.5 cm)
Mount: 22 3/4 × 16 3/4 in. (57.8 × 42.5 cm)

Credit LineGift of Joan Morgenstern

Object number99.470

Not on view

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Department

Photography

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionIn 1997, Catherine Wagner decided to set aside her camera for a while and to utilize instead the same imaging tools employed by medical scientists to see inside bodies and various structures. She was drawn to noninvasive diagnostic procedures employing scanners, particularly MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) and SEM (scanning electron microscope). A blastoderm is a flat disk of cells formed after cleavage in a heavily yolked egg. Wagner was drawn to the abstract patterns that appeared in her investigation of the beginning of life.
ProvenanceJoan Morgenstern, Houston; given to MFAH, 1999.
Exhibition History“Shadows on the Wall: Cameraless Photography from 1851 to Today” The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, August 31– November 30, 2014.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

The photograph is inscribed in pencil, verso of mount, lower edge: "A/P / Blastoderm"

The photograph is signed in pencil, verso of mount: "Catherine Wagner 1998"

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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