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Faking It Symposium: The Apartments

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Faking It Symposium: The Apartments

Program information

The symposium "Truth, Lies, and Photographs" was presented in conjunction with the exhibition Faking It: Manipulated Photography before Photoshop, on view October 11, 2012, through January 27, 2013. In this talk, Artist Nancy Davenport discusses her artwork, including The Apartments, a series of photographs whose interpretation changed after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Davenport's artwork includes screensavers, animations, and manipulated photographs.

Part Seven of Seven

Recorded November 2, 2012

The exhibition is made possible by Adobe.
This program is made possible by Joyce Frank Menschel.

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Two Ways of Life

Oscar Gustav Rejlander  (British, born Sweden, 1813–1875)

Printer:
J. Dudley Johnston (British, 1868 - 1955)
Date:
1857, printed 1920s
Medium:
Carbon print
Dimensions:
Image: 40.6 x 76.2 cm (16 x 30 in.) Frame: 71.4 x 104.2 cm (28 1/8 x 41 in.)
Classification:
Photographs
Credit Line:
The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the National Media Museum, Bradford, United Kingdom

This artwork is part of Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop

This artwork is not on display

  • Description

    The Two Ways of Life was one of the most ambitious and controversial photographs of the nineteenth century. The picture is an elaborate allegory of the choice between vice and virtue, represented by a bearded sage leading two young men from the countryside onto the stage of life. The rebellious youth at left rushes eagerly toward the dissolute pleasures of lust, gambling, and idleness; his wiser counterpart chooses the righteous path of religion, marriage, and good works. Because it would have been impossible to capture a scene of such extravagant complexity in a single exposure, Rejlander photographed each model and background section separately, yielding more than thirty negatives, which he meticulously combined into a single large print.

  • Provenance

    Rejlander's widow gave a body of his work, including negatives, to the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) in the late nineteenth century. This particular photograph was printed by John Dudley Johnston, the former president and curator of the RPS from Rejlander's negatives. In 2003, the National Media Museum acquired the RPS collection. On the history of the RPS collection,and in particular the history of this work see Pam Roberts, "The Royal Photographic Society Collection," (Bath: Royal Photographic Society, 1994), p. 22. Reprorduced in Edgar Yoxall Jones, "Father of Art Photography: O.G. Rejlander 1813-1875," (Greenwich, Conn.: New York Graphic Society, 1973), p. 2.

190049213

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