Restaurant Window, South Carolina
To visualize the toll of the Great Depression, Sekaer sought out people at the margins of American life. Here, he photographs through the window of a segregated restaurant in South Carolina, exchanging glances with a woman inside. The commercial graphics disrupting her view would have appealed to Sekaer, a former sign painter. Yet these compositional impediments signal a greater social barrier between artist and subject, which the photograph seeks to reveal.
Artwork Details
- Title: Restaurant Window, South Carolina
- Artist: Peter Sekaer (American (born Denmark), Copenhagen 1901–1950 Ardsley, New York)
- Date: 1936
- Medium: Gelatin silver print
- Dimensions: Image: 5 3/4 × 6 15/16 in. (14.6 × 17.6 cm)
- Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: Purchase, The Lauder Foundation, Leonard and Judy Lauder Fund Gift, 2019
- Object Number: 2019.188
- Rights and Reproduction: © Estate of Peter Sekaer, courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York
- Curatorial Department: Photographs
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