Rodney, Age 19, Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco

September 3, 1968

Not on view

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

Object Information

Overview

Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings

Provenance

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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