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Laurie Simmons , b. Oct 3, 1949

Woman / Interior II

1976
5 7/16 in. x 8 1/8 in. (13.81 cm x 20.64 cm)

Medium and Support: Gelatin silver print

Credit Line: Museum purchase

Accession Number: 2003.18.11

Commentary

Depicting female dolls in dollhouse interiors performing the stereotypical chores of a 1950s housewife, these images are paradoxically sentimental and critical. In describing this work Simmons has said, "I was simply trying to recreate a feeling, a mood . . . a sense of the fifties that I knew was both beautiful and lethal at the same time."
Created by the artist at the threshold of her career, these poignant and melancholy black and white photographs reflect concerns and themes—artifice and fiction, gender and identity, and memory and nostalgia—that continue to inform her work today. A formative piece within the artist’s oeuvre, it is with this pioneering series of photographs that Simmons became one of the first of a generation of artists to push the boundaries of photography into the realm of conceptual art.

Exhibition List

This object was included in the following exhibitions:

In Focus: 75 Years of Collecting American Photography Addison Gallery of American Art , 4/28/2006 - 7/31/2006
Then and Now Addison Gallery of American Art , 5/10/2008 - 7/13/2008
Inside, Outside, Upstairs, Downstairs: The Addison Anew Addison Gallery of American Art , 9/7/2010 - 3/27/2011
80 @ 80 Addison Gallery of American Art , 10/15/2011 - 12/31/2011
Laurie Simmons: In and Around the House Addison Gallery of American Art , 2/6/2016 - 4/17/2016

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