Bowdoin College Museum of Art | - Portrait of Thomas Bacon

Preview image of work. gelatin silver print, Portrait of Thomas Bacon 10523

1989.69

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Portrait of Thomas Bacon

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Artist

George Platt Lynes (East Orange, New Jersey, 4/15/1907 - 12/6/1955, New York City, New York)

Title

Portrait of Thomas Bacon

Creation Date

ca. 1938

Century

20th century

Dimensions

9 1/8 in. x 7 9/16 in. (23.1 cm. x 19.2 cm.)

Classification

Photographs

Creation Place

North America, United States

Medium and Support

gelatin silver print

Credit Line

Museum Purchase

Copyright

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

Accession Number

1989.69

The Portrait of Thomas Bacon exemplifies striking compositional strategies that invite close, slow looking at the layers used to build up the image. Between the two poles of the composition—the subject of the portrait in the lower third and a tear in the backdrop at the top—are at first indecipherable marks, which turn out to be the marks of a boot-heel. Nothing is known about the subject Thomas Bacon except his name, though it was likely that he was a model or a dancer. After encountering surrealism in Paris in the mid-1920s, George Platt Lynes settled in New York, where he made a career of portrait, fashion, and dance photography, often inflected with a surrealist aesthetic.

Additional Media

Keywords: portraits