Aaron Siskind
Chicago 22

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

CultureAmerican

Titles

Chicago 22

Date1949

PlaceChicago, Illinois, United States

MediumGelatin silver print

DimensionsImage: 7 1/2 × 18 11/16 in. (19.1 × 47.4 cm)
Sheet: 16 × 19 15/16 in. (40.6 × 50.6 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by the Caroline Wiess Law Accessions Endowment, The Manfred Heiting Collection

Object number2002.2946

Not on view

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Department

Photography

Special Collections

Manfred Heiting Collection of Photography

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.
Provenance Research Ongoing Exhibition History"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

lower left corner below image " Chicago 22 1949 "
verso lower right in pencil " 622/Pc3 "

lower right corner below image " Aaron Siskind "

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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