Simon Norfolk
Armenia: Poplars

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Artist Simon NorfolkBritish, born Nigeria, 1963

CultureBritish

Titles

Armenia: Poplars
from the series For Most Of It I Have No Words: Genocide, Landscape, Memory

Date1997, printed 2001

Place depictedDiyarbakir, Turkey

MediumGelatin silver print

DimensionsImage: 7 15/16 × 8 in. (20.2 × 20.3 cm)
Sheet: 15 15/16 × 12 in. (40.5 × 30.5 cm)

Credit LineGift of Joan Morgenstern in memory of Max Herzstein

Object number2008.753

Not on view

Explore Further

Department

Photography

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionIn his series For Most Of It I
Have No Words: Genocide, Landscape, Memory, Simon Norfolk photographed
landscapes of genocide around the world, including Armenia, Auschwitz,
Cambodia, Rwanda, and Vietnam. Here, he features a line of poplars in eastern
Turkey that marks the route by which millions of Armenians were forced to march
to their death by Ottoman armies in 1915. These photographs “portray the
deathly emptiness that one encounters at these sites . . . they are documents
like forensic traces at a crime scene,” says Norfolk.

Provenance[Blue Sky Gallery, Portland, Oregon]; purchased by Joan Morgenstern, Houston, October 27, 2003; given to MFAH, 2008.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

Marked in pencil on verso lower left: "1997: near Diyarbakir, Turkey / 1915: A million Armenians force marched / to death in the Syrian desert"

Marked in pencil on verso lower center; "Editioned for Blue Sky Gallery / 3/15 "

Signed in pencil verso lower right withing a stamp: "Simon Norfolk"

Stamped on verso lower right corner with additional inscriptions in pencil: "Hand printed by the photographer / Date April 2001 / (signature) / Archival (square with check mark) Selenium"
Embossed stamp, recto left: "Simon Norfolk / + 44 020 7254 9620"

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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