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Mother and Child
This tender portrait captures a young boy, his face upturned to meet the gentle touch of an adult’s caress. We don’t know the relationships of those involved, but if we close our eyes like the photograph’s subject, we might hopefully invoke a similar memory of care. Debbie Fleming Caffery grew up in southwest Louisiana and still lives there, documenting rural communities in the vein of photographers like Dorothea Lange who did the same with support from the federal government during the Great Depression. Like Lange, Caffrey humanizes and individualizes her subjects even as she appeals to near-universal emotions.
Butter
Mother and Child
Debbie Fleming Caffery (American, born in 1948)
2005
Medium/Technique
Photograph, gelatin silver print
Dimensions
Image: 56.2 x 44.5 cm (22 1/8 x 17 1/2 in.)
Sheet: 50.2 x 60.6 cm (19 3/4 x 23 7/8 in.)
Sheet: 50.2 x 60.6 cm (19 3/4 x 23 7/8 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Beth Terrana
Accession Number2015.3363
CollectionsContemporary Art, Americas, Photography
ClassificationsPhotographs
This tender portrait captures a young boy, his face upturned to meet the gentle touch of an adult’s caress. We don’t know the relationships of those involved, but if we close our eyes like the photograph’s subject, we might hopefully invoke a similar memory of care. Debbie Fleming Caffery grew up in southwest Louisiana and still lives there, documenting rural communities in the vein of photographers like Dorothea Lange who did the same with support from the federal government during the Great Depression. Like Lange, Caffrey humanizes and individualizes her subjects even as she appeals to near-universal emotions.
Provenance2007, sold by Gitterman Gallery to Beth Terrana, Boston; 2015, year-end gift of Beth Terrana to the MFA. (Accession Date: February 24, 2016)
Copyright© Debbie Fleming Caffery