Valetudinary Likenesses

Odoardo Fialetti
Old Men with Raised Eyes
1608
etching
(illustration for drawing manual)
British Museum

Gianlorenzo Bernini
Pope Gregory XV Ludovisi
1621
marble
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto

Jacob van Campen
Old Woman with a Book
ca. 1625-30
oil on canvas
Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, Ontario

Samuel Hofmann
Philosopher
ca. 1630
oil on canvas
Kunsthaus Zürich

Anonymous Italian Sculptor
Head of an Old Man
ca. 1750
plaster cast of ancient marble in the Albani Collection, Rome
Skulpturensammlung, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

Johann Georg Trautmann
Study of an Old Man
ca. 1760
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Józef Grassi
Portrait of Frau von Weinbrenner
1795
oil on canvas
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Anselm Feuerbach
Old Woman Seated
1853
oil on canvas
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, California

Max Oppenheimer
Voltaire
1916
woodcut
Leopold Museum, Vienna

George Luks
Old Woman with White Pitcher
ca. 1926
oil on canvas
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Edvard Munch
Portrait of Erik Pedersen
1943
pastel on paper
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Arthur Leipzig
Eleanor Roosevelt with Poor Old Woman
ca. 1943
gelatin silver print
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Sanford Roth
Frieda Lawrence
ca. 1950
gelatin silver print
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Leon Levinstein
Untitled (New York)
ca. 1955
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Robert Hyndman
Portrait of Ethel Marion Hyndman
1955
oil on canvas
Ottawa Art Gallery, Ontario

Thomas Hoepker
Sicilian Farmer
ca. 1957
gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Leon Levinstein
New York
ca. 1965
gelatin silver print
Akron Art Museum, Ohio

from Divine Epigrams

        To Pontius washing his blood-stained hands.

Is murther no sin? or a sin so cheape,

                                        That thou need'st heape

A Rape upon't? till thy Adult'rous touch

    Taught her these sullied cheeks this blubber'd face,

She was a Nimph, the meadowes knew none such,

    Of honest Parentage of unstain'd Race,

The Daughter of a faire and well-fam'd Foutaine

As ever Silver-tipt, the side of shady mountaine.

See how she weeps, and weeps, that she appeares

                                        Nothing but Teares;

Each drop's a Teare that weeps for her own wast;

    Harke how at every Touch she does complaine her:

Harke how she bids her frighted Drops make hast,

    And with sad murmurs, chides the Hands that stain her.

Leave, leave, for shame, or else (Good judge) decree,

What water shal wash this, when this hath washed thee.

– Richard Crashaw, Steps to the Temple (1648)

Imogen Cunningham

Imogen Cunningham
Reflections
1910
platinum print
Art Institute of Chicago

Imogen Cunningham
Self Portrait
1915
platinum print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Imogen Cunningham
Nude
1923
gelatin silver print
(recent print from vintage negative)
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri

Imogen Cunningham
Leslie Van Ness
1925
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Imogen Cunningham
Roseanna
ca. 1925
gelatin silver print
Phillips Collection, Washington DC

Imogen Cunningham
Water Hyacinth 2
ca. 1925
gelatin silver print
(recent print from vintage negative)
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri

Imogen Cunningham
Untitled
1929
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Imogen Cunningham
Snake
1929
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Imogen Cunningham
Back
1929
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Imogen Cunningham
Martha Graham
1931
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Imogen Cunningham
Martha Graham 2
1931
gelatin silver print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Imogen Cunningham
Self Portrait
1933
gelatin silver print
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Imogen Cunningham
Madame Ozenfant
1935
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Imogen Cunningham
Portrait
(series, Age and Its Symbols)
1958
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Imogen Cunningham
Man Ray
1961
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Imogen Cunningham
Ruth Asawa
1963
gelatin silver print
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Imogen Cunningham
Judy Dater
1971
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Abe Frajndlich
Imogen Cunningham
1975
gelatin silver print
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

from Metamorphoses 

    Before the Moone should circlewise close both hir hornes in one

    Three nightes were yet as then to come. Assoone as that she shone

Most full of light, and did behold the earth with fulsome face,

Medea with hir haire not trust so much as in a lace,

But flaring on hir shoulders twaine, and barefoote, with hir gowne

Ungirded, gate hir out of doores and wandred up and downe

Alone the dead time of the night, both Man, and Beast, and Bird

Were fast a sleepe: the Serpents slie in trayling forward stird

So softly as ye would have thought they still a sleepe had bene.

The moysting Ayre was whist, no leafe ye could have moving sene.

The starres alonly faire and bright did in the welkin shine

To which the lifting up hir handes did thrise hirselfe encline.

And thrice with water of the brooke hir haire besprincled shee:

And gasping thrise she opte hir mouth: and bowing downe hir knee

Upon the bare hard ground, she saith: O trustie time of night

Most faithful unto privities, O golden starres whose light

Doth jointly with the Moone succeede the beames that blaze by day 

And thou three headed Hecate who knowest best the way

To compasse this our great attempt and art our chiefest stay;

Ye Charmes and Witchcrafts, and thou Earth which both with herbe and weed

Of mightie working furnishest the Wizardes at their neede:

Ye Ayres and windes: ye Elves of Hilles, of Brookes, of Woods alone,

Of standing Lakes, and of the Night approche ye everychone.

– Ovid (43 BC-AD 17), translated by Arthur Golding (1567)

Cindy Sherman - II

Cindy Sherman
Untitled #109
1982
C-print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

 

Cindy Sherman
Untitled #110
1982
C-print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Cindy Sherman
Untitled #112
1982
C-print
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Cindy Sherman
Untitled #123
1983
C-print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Cindy Sherman
Untitled #136
1984
C-print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Cindy Sherman
Untitled #146
1985
C-print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Cindy Sherman
Untitled #167
1986
C-print
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Cindy Sherman
Untitled #175
1987
C-print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Cindy Sherman
Untitled #264
1992
C-print
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Cindy Sherman
Untitled
1992
C-print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Cindy Sherman
Untitled #311 
1994
C-print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Cindy Sherman
Untitled #347
1999
gelatin silver print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Cindy Sherman
Untitled
2000
C-print
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis

Cindy Sherman
Untitled
2004
C-print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Cindy Sherman
Untitled #466
2008
C-print
Roberts Institute of Art, London

Cindy Sherman
Untitled #470
2008
C-print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Cindy Sherman
Untitled
2008
C-print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

from A Myth of Innocence

One summer she goes into the field as usual

stopping for a bit at the pond where she often

looks at herself, to see

if she detects any changes. She sees

the same person, the horrible mantle

of daughterliness still clinging to her.

The sun seems, in the water, very close.

That's my uncle, spying again, she thinks –

everything in nature is in some way her relative.

I am never alone, she thinks, 

turning the thought into a prayer. 

Then death appears, like the answer to a prayer.

No one understands anymore

how beautiful he was. But Persephone remembers.

Also that he embraced her, right there,

with her uncle watching. She remembers

sunlight flashing on his bare arms.

This is the last moment she remembers clearly.

Then the dark god bore her away.

– Louise Glück (2006)