Mother and Daughter, New York, N.Y.

Arthur Tress

1978

A gelatin silver print in which Arthur Tress stages a surreal family tableau—placing a solemn girl beside a shrouded, ghostlike figure that holds a small, old portrait—to probe memory, loss, and the uncanny.

You’re first drawn to the girl’s downcast face and flowing hair against a cracked wall, then to the diaphanous curtain that transforms the other figure into a spectral presence while the tiny vintage photograph punctuates the scene like a relic.

Made in the late 1970s, the image shows Tress’s signature mix of documentary clarity and theatrical staging and helped push photography toward narrating interior states, family myth, and the unconscious.

Palette

Art Terms

Gelatin silverprint (developing-out paper) Photography Portrait Surrealism Monochrome Investigating identity

Exhibitions

70 Photographers Look at New York

1957

Pictures for Children

1941

Photographs of Women

1971

New York/New York

1978