About this artwork
Although he began his career as a documentarian, Aaron Siskind quickly became known for photographs that concerned themselves with exploring internal formal relationships rather than depicting recognizable objects. Active in the artistic milieu of postwar New York, Siskind made photographs in dialogue with the work of the Abstract Expressionist painters, with whom he was socially and professionally close. He sought to find a new language for photographic depiction that could transcend what was in front of the camera. “First, and emphatically,” he wrote in 1950, “I accept the flat plane of the picture surface as the primary frame of reference of the picture.” Siskind’s radically abstract photographs of walls covered with graffiti, chalk, or peeling paint and paper would be recognized as a pioneering development in 20th-century photography.
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Status
- Currently Off View
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Department
- Photography and Media
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Artist
- Aaron Siskind
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Title
- North Carolina
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Place
- United States (Artist's nationality:)
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Date
- Made 1951
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Medium
- Gelatin silver print
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Inscriptions
- Signed recto, on mount, lower right, below image, in black ink: "Aaron Siskind"; signed verso, on mount, center, in graphite: "Aaron Siskind"; inscribed verso, on mount, lower left, in graphite: "North Carolina 11, 1951"
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Dimensions
- Image/paper: 34.1 × 23.6 cm (13 7/16 × 9 5/16 in.); Mount: 55.8 × 45.7 cm (22 × 18 in.)
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Credit Line
- Gift of Judy Marcus
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Reference Number
- 1991.365
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Copyright
- © Aaron Siskind Foundation.
Extended information about this artwork
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.
