Student Picks: SHE

Student Picks is an SCMA program in which Smith students organize their own one-day art show using our collection of works on paper. This month’s student curator and guest blogger Yu Yan '18  discusses her show "SHE" which will be on view FRIDAY, October 2 from 12-4 PM in the Cunningham Center for the Study of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs. We hope to see you here!

The reason I picked these photographs is simple and direct: to find different “she”.

^{Judy Dater. American, born 1941. Imogen and Twinka, Yosemite, 1974. Gelatin silver print. Purchased with the gift of the National Endowment for the Arts. SC 1977.10.6.}

How did women evaluate themselves? How did the photographer define the women through the lens? What kind of role was expected to be played by women? And how did women respond to the social expectations that already existed?

^{Felice Beato. British born Italy, 1825–1904. At Her Toilette, ca. 1868. Albumen print with hand coloring mounted on cream colored paperboard. Purchased with the Hillyer-Tryon-Mather Fund, with funds given in memory of Nancy Newhall (Nancy Parker, class of 1930) and in honor of Beaumont Newhall, and with funds given in honor of Ruth Wedgwood Kennedy. SC 1982.38.2.4.}

Among these photographs, women are depicted with diverse values and roles, over a really wide range of cultures, time periods, locations, religions and many other social backgrounds.  In this exhibition, I set up several groups for these photographs about women, so it will be interesting if you could imagine any connections between two photographs in one group.

^{Joel Meyerowitz. American, born 1938. NYC Easter, 1984. Vintage chromogenic contact print. Gift of Nicole Moretti Ungar, class of 1982, and Jon Ungar. SC 2014.53.57.}