SKINNER MUSEUM: Closed
GiveRabbits for sale, from the series The Way of Life of the Northern Negro, Chicago
mh_2012_18_8_v1-cdm.jpg
Photo Credit:
Mount Holyoke College Art Museum
Not On View
Miller, Wayne F.
American (1918-2013)
Place made:
North America; United States; Illinois; Chicago
Rabbits for sale, from the series The Way of Life of the Northern Negro, Chicago, ca. 1945 negative; 1999 print
Gelatin silver print
Mat: 22 in x 18 in; 55.9 cm x 45.7 cm; Sheet: 13 15/16 in x 10 15/16 in; 35.4 cm x 27.8 cm; Image: 10 3/16 in x 10 in; 25.9 cm x 25.4 cm
Purchase with funds given in memory of Joanne Hammerman Alter (Class of 1949) and the Art Acquisition Fund
MH 2012.18.8
In the early 1940s Wayne Miller received a Guggenheim Fellowship to photograph the inhabitants of Chicago’s South Side, focusing on the neighborhood’s street life and work life in order to “document the things that make this human race of ours a family,” as he later wrote. He was especially drawn to entertainers and nightclubs, photographing luminaries like Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald. Miller was also keen on the anonymous men and women who worked nightly at the jazz and blues clubs. In Chorus girls, for instance, we see the glitz and industry of this nightlife, and we also witness Miller’s ability to gain access to its least public realms.
-Anthony W. Lee, Idella Plimpton Kendall Professor of Art History, Mount Holyoke College (Sept. 2016)
