Maker(s): | Miller, Wayne F.
| Culture: | American (1918-2013)
| Title: | Spectators at pool hall, from the series The Way of Life of the Northern Negro, Chicago
| Date Made: | ca. 1945 negative; 1999 print
| Type: | Photograph
| Materials: | Gelatin silver print
| Place Made: | North America; United States; Illinois; Chicago
| Measurements: | Mat: 22 in x 18 in; 55.9 cm x 45.7 cm; Sheet: 13 15/16 in x 11 1/16 in; 35.4 cm x 28.1 cm; Image: 12 15/16 in x 10 1/16 in; 32.9 cm x 25.6 cm
| Narrative Inscription: | INSCRIPTION: verso, ctr. (pencil): Wayne Miller; INSCRIPTION: verso, ctr. (pencil): 437-1; INSCRIPTION: verso, lwr. r. (pen and black ink): p. 13
| Accession Number: | MH 2012.18.5
| Credit Line: | Purchase with funds given in memory of Joanne Hammerman Alter (Class of 1949) and the Art Acquisition Fund
| Museum Collection: | Mount Holyoke College Art Museum
|
|
|
Description: A vertical photograph of two African American men sitting and looking towards the right; both in suits, the left one raises his left hand and adjusts his collor and the right one wears a hat and a tie, smoking; posters of boxing and snooker on the back wall.
Label Text: In the early 1940s Wayne Miller received a Guggenheim Fellowship to photograph the inhabitants of Chicago’s South Side, focusing on the neighborhood’s street life and work life in order to “document the things that make this human race of ours a family,” as he later wrote. He was especially drawn to entertainers and nightclubs, photographing luminaries like Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald. Miller was also keen on the anonymous men and women who worked nightly at the jazz and blues clubs. In Chorus girls, for instance, we see the glitz and industry of this nightlife, and we also witness Miller’s ability to gain access to its least public realms.
-Anthony W. Lee, Idella Plimpton Kendall Professor of Art History, Mount Holyoke College (Sept. 2016)
Tags: men Link to share this object record: https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=MH+2012.18.5 |