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

ca. 1916

Not on view

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.

Artwork Details

Overview

Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings

Provenance

Exhibition History

Title: [Panama Hats, from a Sloan-Force Co. Catalogue]
Artist: F. D. Hampson (American, 1871–1947)
Date: ca. 1916
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Dimensions: 18.5 x 23.4 cm (7 5/16 x 9 3/16 in. )
Frame: 16 x 20 in.
Classification: Photographs
Credit Line: Purchase, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 2001
Object Number: 2001.380.6
Curatorial Department: Photographs

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