Edith, Danville, Virginia

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Edith, Danville, Virginia

Artist Emmet Gowin (American, born 1941)

Date1970

DimensionsOverall: 8 1/16 x 10 1/16 in. (20.4 x 25.6 cm)

MediumGelatin-silver print

ClassificationPhotographs

Credit LineAmerican Art Fund

Object number

1986.58

Not on View

Label TextEmmett Gowin’s prints are thoughtfully rendered with exacting attention to photographic quality. His first major body of work focused on the circle of his wife’s family in Danville, Virginia. Central to his work in the early 1970s were the pictures of his wife Edith. His images of her are tender, loving, quiet, and, at times, intimate. Images of Edith, like the one on view here, were very personal to Gowin, rather than being the result of a project or photographic assignment. Yet they are more than a family record. These images touch on the essential nature of humanity, revealing some sense of the feelings between two people. The circular format of this image was produced using a short focal range Angulon lens, intended for a small camera, on a much larger 8 x 10 view camera. At first Gowin reduced or eliminated the exaggeration at the edges of the photographs produced with this ‘unhappy’ combination through careful trimming. However, the artist came to appreciate the untrimmed images: “Eventually I realized that such a lens contributed to a particular description of space and that the circle itself was already a powerful form.”Exhibition HistoryToledo Museum of Art, Refraction/Reflection, April 20-September 2, 2012.