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Maker(s):Morris, Wright
Culture:American (1910-1998)
Title:Dresser Drawer, near Norfolk, Nebraska
Date Made:1947 negative; 1980 print
Type:Photograph
Materials:gelatin silver print mounted on archival ragboard
Measurements:Mat: 14 in x 17 in; 35.6 cm x 43.2 cm; Sheet/Image: 7 1/2 in x 9 1/2 in; 19 cm x 24.1 cm
Accession Number:  AC 2013.01.6
Credit Line:Gift of Stephen Arkin (Class of 1963) in memory of Benjamin De Mott
Museum Collection:  Mead Art Museum at Amherst College
2013-01-6.jpg

Description:
The majority of the frame in this black and white photograph is the bird's eye view of the interior of a desk drawer. Inside is a cigar box, pills, Remington bullets, and medicine from the O.E. Bullis pharmacy in Nebraska. On the top of the desk is a pocket watch, hairbrush, and photographs.

Label Text:
"I looked at the odds and ends on the bureau, the pincushion lid on the cigar box, the faded Legion poppies, assorted pills, patent medicines. There was not a thing of beauty, a manmade loveliness, anywhere. A strange thing, for whatever it was I was feeling, at that moment, was what I expect a thing of beauty to make me feel. To take me out of my self, into the selves of other things. I've been in the habit, recently, of saying that if we could feel anything, very long, it would kill us, and that we get on by not even feeling ourselves. To keep that from happening we have this thing called embarrassment. That snaps it off, like an antisepsis, or we rely on our wives, or one of our friends, to take the pressure out of the room with a crack of some kind. That's what I was about to do. For once in my life I didn't, but as I had to do something I went into Ed's room and opened the bureau drawer, and called, 'Oh, Peg!' When she came in I said--'Ed used to hunt. He used to go off for a day at a time, with a dog and a gun, up the river. When I was a kid there was still a wolf or two around here.' I said that, then I closed the drawer, making it clear that we could mind his public business, but leave his private business alone."

The Home Place, 1948

Tags:
medicine; interiors; desks; eyeglasses; photographs; desks; knives

Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=AC+2013.01.6

Research on objects in the collections, including provenance, is ongoing and may be incomplete. If you have additional information or would like to learn more about a particular object, please email fc-museums-web@fivecolleges.edu.

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