Highlights from the Photography Collection: Faces and Figures
Nov 9, 2010 – July 3, 2011
This exhibition of about 50 photographs explores representations of the portrait and the nude over the last century. Central to all the selected photographs is a concern for identity. In some cases subjects are treated with specificity as unique individuals while in other cases identity is addressed in more general terms through idealized perfection or association with broad cultural groups. The installation includes portraits of renowned figures such as Pablo Picasso, James Joyce and Mikhail Baryshnikov as well as portraits of anonymous individuals such as Irving Penn’s image of two Nepalese women and Edward Curtis’s image of a Native American woman. For the latter examples, details of costume and dress provide clues to the sitters’ identities. The exhibition also addresses concepts of the nude and the naked by juxtaposing idealized images of the human form (such as Ruth Bernhard’s Classic Torso) with images of figures in various stages of undress by Steven Meisel and Anne Noggle. These themes are further explored in portraits and nudes by famed photographer Andy Warhol. The exhibition is made possible by the Sidney Knight Endowment.
Dali Atomicus, photo by Philippe Halsman
