Onion (Rousham Park Hero)

1900–10

Not on view

Recently, Facebook’s algorithm flagged a photograph of onions for apparent indecency. Warmly lit and elegantly posed, these onions might likewise pass for food porn. Anticipating today’s farm-to-table fetish by a century, Sussex gardener Jones photographed a harvest from his employer’s estate. Isolated against a stark backdrop, the onions presage the formalist still lifes of photographers like Edward Weston, though Jones resists the modernist impulse to abstract his subjects from the quotidian contexts of kitchen and garden. In his album from the period, some pictures of produce appear alongside family snapshots, while others are pasted in taxonomic grids and labeled by type. Equal parts scrapbook and scientific ledger, the album suggests the dual roles of the camera for Jones; in his lens, creative and empirical impulses converge.

Artwork Details

Overview

Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings

Provenance

Title: Onion (Rousham Park Hero)
Artist: Charles Jones (British, 1866–1959)
Date: 1900–10
Medium: Gelatin silver print from glass negative
Dimensions: Sheet: 6 7/16 × 8 1/2 in. (16.3 × 21.6 cm)
Classification: Photographs
Credit Line: Purchase, Thomas L. Kempner Jr. and Katheryn C. Patterson Gift, in honor of Jeff Peek, 2019
Object Number: 2019.340
Curatorial Department: Photographs

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