Aaron Siskind - Photographs New York Friday, April 5, 2024 | Phillips
  • This photograph was shown at the pioneering Egan Gallery in New York City in the late 1940s or 1950s. Operated by Charles Egan, the gallery was one of the first venues to exhibit the work of the most adventurous New York artists of the day, including Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Isamu Noguchi, Joseph Cornell, and many others. Siskind was introduced to Egan by painter Barnett Newman. Egan, impressed by the work Siskind showed him, agreed to give him an exhibition, the first showing of photography at the gallery. Egan would go on to show Siskind's work in four subsequent exhibitions through 1954.

     

    Siskind took up photography at the age of 26 and initially worked in the documentary mode. In the 1930s, he became involved with the Photo League, the pre-eminent organization of socially-committed photographers in New York City.  In the 1940s, however, his gradual shift away from a straightforward documentary style strained his relationship with the Photo League, and ultimately led to his departure from the group. By the middle of the 1940s, Siskind found new acceptance within the circle of artists that came to be known as the Abstract Expressionists. Living in Greenwich Village, and working as a schoolteacher, Siskind was a regular participant at the boisterous gatherings at the Cedar Bar and the Waldorf Cafeteria that included the artists Newman, de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, and Jackson Pollock. While these artists were redefining painting, Siskind was staging a quieter, but no less important, redefinition of his own medium. 

     

    This print was also included in The Museum of Modern Art exhibition Diogenes with a Camera II alongside work by Man Ray, Ansel Adams, Todd Webb, Dorothea Lange, and Tosh Matsumoto. Curated by Edward Steichen, this exhibition was one installment of series Steichen named for Diogenes, the Greek philosopher known for his quest for truth. 

     

    This photograph is entirely characteristic of Siskind’s early presentation style for exhibition prints, in which he mounted them onto thick Masonite, a treatment which gave them a three-dimensional presence on the wall not typically associated with photography.  

     

    Installation view of Diogenes with a Camera II, The Museum of Modern Art, 1952-53, showing Siskind’s Kentucky 5 fourth from right.  

     

     

     Read more about the collection

    • Provenance

      Egan Gallery, New York
      Collection of Gerald Nordland, Chicago
      Carol Ehlers Gallery, Chicago, 1999

    • Exhibited

      Diogenes With A Camera II, The Museum of Modern Art, November 1952 - March 1953

    • Literature

      Robert Mann Gallery, Aaron Siskind: The Fragmentation of Language, p. 19
      Museum of Photographic Arts, Aaron Siskind: Mid Century Modern, pl. 51

FIGURE + FORM: PHOTOGRAPHS FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION

335

Kentucky 5

1951
Gelatin silver print.
10 1/4 x 13 1/4 in. (26 x 33.7 cm)
Numbered '21' and annotated 'MoMA' in crayon and pencil on the reverse of the Masonite flush-mount.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$20,000 - 30,000 

Sold for $27,940

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Photographs

New York Auction 5 April 2024