[Panama Hats, from a Sloan-Force Co. Catalogue]

F. D. Hampson American

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 852

Like satellites, these straw hats hover in a void. Their absence of context invites imaginative projection: how easy to envision this or that model touching down on one’s head. Popularized by association with the new Panama Canal, the hats were photographed for a St. Louis sales catalogue. Their spare, surreal configuration anticipates an avant-garde approach; in the coming years, disembodied hats would pop up in works by Max Ernst and Hans Richter, evoking the callous consumer—a bourgeois icon ripe for critique. Here, such premonitions of modernism serve practical ends. Suspended together, their varied brims and bands elicit comparison, demanding scrutiny. In an era of exponentially increasing consumer choice, such photographic displays could make anyone into a connoisseur.

[Panama Hats, from a Sloan-Force Co. Catalogue], F. D. Hampson (American, 1871–1947), Gelatin silver print

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