Dublin Core
Title
Bedroom Through Doorway, Harlem, 1940
Creator
Siskind, Aaron
photographer
1903 - 1991
American
Date
1940; printed 1981
Type
photograph; gelatin silver print
work
Medium
gelatin silver print
photographic paper
photography (process); gelatin silver process
Extent
35.56 x 27.94 cm (14 x 11 inches)
27.62 x 20 cm (10 7/8 x 7 7/8 inches)
Identifier
2017.012.004
2017.012.004
2017.012.004
Rights
Copyright. 1940. Estate of Aaron Siskind
Description
This photograph places the viewer in the position of a person looking into a bedroom from a hallway. In the foreground, there is the opened bedroom door, the frame of the door, and decorative wooden elements above the doorway. The bedroom is lit by a single, bare light bulb hanging from a string. Against the back wall, there is a vanity with neatly arranged toiletries. The wall surrounding the mirror of the vanity is covered with magazine clippings. Between the doorway and the vanity, the foot of the bed with the legs and feet of a man who is lying on the bed are also seen. The effect is that of a peek into a private space, made more immediate by the glimpse of the man's lower body. Although this is part of the "Harlem Document" group of photos taken by Siskind in the 1930s, it was not included in the 1981 book, Harlem Document: Photographs 1932-1940: Aaron Siskind (Banks, Ann, and Charles Traub, eds. Harlem Document: Photographs 1932-1940: Aaron Siskind. Providence: Matrix Publication, 1981).
Aaron Siskind
margin, verso
Bedroom Through Doorway, Harlem, 1940, "HD"
verso [in pencil, in unknown hand]
Aaron Siskind was born on December 4, 1903, in New York City. He attended City College, earning his BSS in Literature in 1926. After college, he taught English in the New York City public school system from 1926 to 1947. In 1929, he married Sidonie Glaller, and received his first camera as a wedding gift. Throughout the 1930s, he was active in the New York Photo League and formed Feature Group, a documentary production unit as a part of the Photo League School. The photographs produced by Siskind and his associates were published as ‘The Feature Group’ in Photo Notes in 1940, most of them featuring scenes of city life. In the 1940s, Siskind developed ties with several New York School artists, and his work became increasingly abstract and symbolic. In 1945, he published ‘The Drama of Objects’, a series of photographs featuring compositions comprised of objects he found around Martha’s Vineyard, MA. During this period and into the 1950s, his work was regularly exhibited in New York City, particularly at the Charles Egan Gallery. In addition to his ongoing photography career, Siskind taught photography at Trenton Junior College in New Jersey from 1947 to 1949; the Illinois Institute of Technology, Institute of Design in Chicago from 1951 to 1971, also serving as head of the Photographic Department from 1959 to 1971; and the Rhode Island School of Design from 1971 to 1976. He had a close connection with fellow photographer Harry Callahan, whom he met while teaching at Black Mountain College in the summer of 1951; the two taught and worked together for most of Siskind’s later career. From 1960 to 1970, he served as co-editor of Choice Magazine. He was a founding member of both the Society for Photographic Education and the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, New York and served as a board member for the Gallery of Contemporary Art in Chicago. He maintained an active photography career until his death in Providence, Rhode Island in February, 1991.
Subject
cities; black-and-white photographs; apartment house
Source
http://www.howardgreenberg.com/; http://aaronsiskind.org/chronology.html
Publisher
Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, State University of New York at New Paltz (New Paltz, New York, United States)
Photography Collection. Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art
Relation
http://hvvacc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/sdma/id/5078
Coverage
contemporary (generic time frame)
Contemporary (style of art)
Photo League of New York
Provenance
Estate of Tennyson Schad
Gift of Howard and Ellen Greenberg
Artwork Item Type Metadata
URL
http://hvvacc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/sdma/id/5078