On View
Not on viewObject number2006.57
Marsden Hartley
Artist
George Platt Lynes
(American, 1907-1955)
Date1943
Mediumgelatin silver print
Dimensionsmat: 20 × 16 in. (50.8 × 40.6 cm)
image (flush): 9 1/2 × 7 1/2 in. (24.1 × 19.1 cm)
image (flush): 9 1/2 × 7 1/2 in. (24.1 × 19.1 cm)
Credit LineElisabeth Claire Lahti Fund
Exhibition History"The Human Face: Portraits in Photography," KIA Long Gallery (May 5 - Aug. 28, 2007).
"Through the Photographer's Lens: O'Keeffe and Her Circle," KIA Galleries 2&5 (May 9 - Sept. 13, 2009).
"A Legacy for Kalamazoo: Works Acquired through the Elisabeth Claire Lahti Fund, 1998 - 2012," KIA (Sept. 29, 2012 - Jan. 20, 2013).
"Framing Moments: Photography from KIA's Permanent Collection," KIA (Feb. 6 - May 16, 2021)Label TextMarsden Hartley was a giant among America’s living painters when Lynes, among the most prominent and fashionable photographers of the era, made this image. It is just one among many from a shoot in which Hartley either sat or stood in a variety of poses among several different props but always with dramatic lighting and some version of a silhouetted figure in the background. Both Hartley and Lynes were gay when homosexuality was a crime. Lynes produced a large body of work in secret devoted to the male nude, while Hartley referenced the topic in some of his own paintings in very non-overt, shadowy terms, not unlike the tone of this portrait.
[Framing Moments Exhibition, 2021]