Rodney, Age 19, Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco
Elaine Mayes began her quasi-anthropological documentation of social happenings in the San Francisco Bay Area in the early 1960s, focusing particularly on music and youth culture. She always recorded the subject’s name, age, and the precise date, and her portraits of the "hippie" scene in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco are notable for their straightforward, eye-to-eye approach. Behind the protagonist of this quintessential, Vietnam-era portrait are two shopfront businesses on Haight Street, both of which are still in operation more than fifty years later. The Persian Aub Zam Zam, on the right, is an infamous dive cocktail bar frequented in the day by Janis Joplin, The Doors, and Jefferson Airplane.
Artwork Details
- Title: Rodney, Age 19, Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco
- Artist: Elaine Mayes (American, born 1938)
- Date: September 3, 1968
- Medium: Gelatin silver print
- Dimensions: Image: 9 1/2 × 8 3/4 in. (24.1 × 22.3 cm)
Sheet: 14 × 11 in. (35.6 × 27.9 cm) - Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: Purchase, The Lauder Foundation, Leonard and Judy Lauder Fund Gift, 2019
- Object Number: 2019.343
- Rights and Reproduction: © Elaine Mayes
- Curatorial Department: Photographs
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