Susan Meiselas
Shortie on the Bally, Barton, Vermont

ExpandFavorite

Images(2)

Artist Susan Meiselas (American, born 1948)American, born 1948

CultureAmerican

Titles

Shortie on the Bally, Barton, Vermont
from the series Carnival Strippers

Date1974

PlaceBarton, Vermont, United States

MediumGelatin silver print

DimensionsImage: 12 5/16 × 18 3/16 in. (31.3 × 46.2 cm)
Sheet: 16 × 19 15/16 in. (40.6 × 50.6 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by Joan Morgenstern and Anne Wilkes Tucker

Object number2008.261

Not on view

Explore Further

Department

Photography

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionSusan Meiselas’s first major photographic essay focused on the lives of women who stripped at small town carnivals in New England, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. Over the summers of 1972 to 1975, she followed them from town to town, photographing their public performances and their private lives and ultimately recording interviews with the dancers, their boyfriends, the show managers, and paying customers as well, to better give voice to the perspective of the women. A photojournalist best known for her coverage of insurrections and human rights issues in Latin America, Meiselas was a shy 24-year-old fresh out of graduate school when she talked her way into the traveling tents that posted just one hard rule: “No ladies, and no babies.” The women ranged in age from 17 to 35, and Meiselas embedded herself in their inner world with the same unflinching compassion that she brings to all her subjects, untangling the complex landscape of the performative and the political in powerful, articulate images that reflected the heart of the early women’s movement.
Provenance[Houston Center for Photography, Houston]; purchased by MFAH, 2008.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

Marked in pencil, verso lower left: "Shortie on The Bally / Barton, VT. 1974 / From 'Carnival Strippers' "

Marked in pencil verso lower edge: "MES197400A W00023/01" "SW30680"

Signed in pencil verso lower right: "Susan Meiselas"

Printed label on verso mat/mount: "Houston Center for Photography 2008 Auction / Susan Meiselas / ... / Open edition"

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

If you have questions about this work of art or the MFAH Online Collection please contact us.