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Abandoned House from the series The Inhabitants
Wright Morris (American, 1910–1998)
1940–41
Medium/Technique
Photograph, gelatin silver print, ferrotyped
Dimensions
Image: 19.9 x 24.1 cm (7 13/16 x 9 1/2 in.)
Mount: 40.6 x 50.8 cm (16 x 20 in.)
Mount: 40.6 x 50.8 cm (16 x 20 in.)
Credit Line
Charles Amos Cummings Fund
Accession Number1994.243
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsAmericas, Photography
ClassificationsPhotographs
During the 1930s and 1940s, Wright Morris made photographs of simple buildings such as farmhouses, barns, and small-town businesses set in the surrounding landscape of rural Nebraska, where he grew up. Morris, who was a writer as well as a photographer, paired pictures like Abandoned House with narrative texts in his book The Inhabitants (1946). He obviously felt affection for the austere house and bleak landscape of the Midwestern plains and admired the ability of the photograph to describe the quotidian details of the setting in the same way that his writings gave voice to the people who lived there.
DescriptionNote: This photograph was mounted and text taped to mount to promote the book The Inhabitants to prospective publishers. When the book was published in 1946, this text and photograph were combined with other images and texts, although both were included. Print, ferrotyped, mounted to medium-weight off-white wove paper with text typed by W. Morris taped to recto.
InscriptionsOn mount, below image, l. r., in black ink: Wright Morris.
ProvenancePage Imageworks, San Francisco, CA; purchased October 1994.
Copyright© 2003 Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents