Skip to main content
Advanced Search
Airplane Boy
Airplane Boy
Airplane Boy
Photograph and Ditital Image © Kalamazoo Institute of Arts. Not for reproduction or publication.
On View
Not on view
Object number2017.15

Airplane Boy

Artist (1933 - 2009)
Date1976
Mediumgelatin silver print
Dimensionsimage: 11 7/8 × 17 3/4 in. (30.2 × 45.1 cm)
sheet: 14 × 20 in. (35.6 × 50.8 cm)
Credit LineGift of Mark Swanson
Exhibition History"Unmasking Masculinity for the 21st Century," KIA Galleries 2-5 (September 24, 2022 - December 29, 2022)Label TextWhile born in Caro, Richard Conrad Swanson spent his youth in Vassar, Michigan. While still in high school, he worked as a freelance photographer for local newspapers and businesses. In the 1970s and 80s, Swanson began exploring the candid nature of street photography. He saw value in documenting small-town life for its aesthetic qualities and as a means of historical preservation. In Airplane Boy, a youth dressed in a football jersey, a scarf, goggles, and a leather aviator’s helmet stands in a driveway. The boy, identified as the artist’s son, also wears a cardboard biplane costume. Taken during the mid1970s when action figures, Barbie dolls, Hot Wheels cars, and other manufactured toys were in high demand, this image, in contrast, conjures nostalgia for an era of childhood play using household materials. Swanson depicts his son as both a representation and reminder of the power of youthful innocence, imagination, and exploration. [Label for "Unmasking Masculinity for the 21st Century", 2022]