About this artwork
After George Eastman introduced the handheld Kodak #1 camera in 1888, amateurs made millions of snapshots depicting friends and family, travels, and festive occasions such as weddings. Even while solidifying such thoroughly conventional behaviors, amateur photography developed a new pictorial language that privileged immediacy, spontaneity, and accident. Career photographers and art historians—but also antiques vendors and flea-market shoppers—have long recognized the value of the “snapshot aesthetic.” The rise of social media and smartphones in recent years has effectively ended the era of the snapshot as both a printed photograph and an image for a private audience.
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Status
- Currently Off View
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Department
- Photography and Media
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Artist
- Unknown Maker
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Title
- Tommy
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Place
- Unknown Place (Object made in)
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Date
- Made 1928
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Medium
- Gelatin silver print with applied coloring
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Dimensions
- 13.7 × 8.5 cm (5 7/16 × 3 3/8 in.)
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Credit Line
- Gift of Peter J. Cohen
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Reference Number
- 2013.158.130
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.
