Highway 101, Petaluma, California, from the series "On This Site: Landscape in Memoriam"

About this artwork

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Photography and Media

Artist

Joel Sternfeld

Title

Highway 101, Petaluma, California, from the series "On This Site: Landscape in Memoriam"

Place

United States (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

Made 1993

Medium

Chromogenic print

Edition

1 of 7

Inscriptions

inscribed recto, on mount, lower right, below image, in black ink: "Highway 101, Petaluma, California. (October 1993) / 1/7 Joel Sternfeld" Polly Klaas was abducted from her home in Petaluma during a slumber party on October 1, 1993. Within hours, a massive volunteer effort was organized to find the twelve-year-old girl. Millions of flyers bearing Polly’s photograph and a police composite sketch of her abductor were distributed nationally. Large banners were affixed to billboards across Northern California. Two months later, Richard Allen Davis, an ex-convict with a history of drug and alcohol abuse, led police to a wooded area fifty miles north of Petaluma where he had buried Polly Klaas’s body. From the series, On This Site: Landscape in Memoriam

Dimensions

Image/paper: 48.5 × 60.5 cm (19 1/8 × 23 7/8 in.); Mount: 71.2 × 82.7 cm (28 1/16 × 32 9/16 in.)

Credit Line

Acquired from the Center for Documentary Studies, Duke University, through an Anonymous Gift

Reference Number

1997.280

Extended information about this artwork

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