Bowdoin College Museum of Art | - Black Nude and Radiator

Preview image of work. vintage gelatin silver print on paper, Black Nude and Radiator 31932

2016.46.231

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Black Nude and Radiator

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Artist

William Witt (Newark, New Jersey, 1921 - 2013`)

Title

Black Nude and Radiator

Creation Date

1948

Century

mid-20th century

Dimensions

14 x 11 in. (36 x 28 cm)

Classification

Photographs

Creation Place

North America, United States

Medium and Support

vintage gelatin silver print on paper

Credit Line

Gift of Jon and Nicole Ungar

Copyright

This artwork may be under copyright. For further information, please consult the Museum’s Copyright Terms and Conditions.

Accession Number

2016.46.231

Related to Photographer William Witt's "Black Nude Hands On Chest", "Black Nude and Radiator", "Nude In Leather Chair" and "Sleeping Nude", Witt is known for his photographs of New York street scenes. However, he also devoted part of his career to picturing nude female bodies. The women in this series of photographs adopt various poses for the photographer. While three of the photographs are presumably taken in the same setting, one photograph removes the setting entirely, only giving us a view of the woman’s body. Their unrecorded names and invisible faces are a form of erasure, leaving only their Black bodies on view for the world. Playing into Western art traditions of portraying the female nude, Witt’s photographs are layered with a legacy of enslavement, ethnographic exhibition, and conquest of Black bodies. His photographs raise issues about the connotations of the Black female body: hypersexual, unfeminine, obscene, and grotesque. One might question Witt’s relationship to the women. Are they models he employed or perhaps acquaintances?

Additional Media

recto