Untitled

Aaron Siskind

c. 1954

A gelatin silver print in which Aaron Siskind transforms peeling paint, drips, and cracked plaster into a spare, abstract composition that treats a wall’s surface like a painterly field.

A deep black ground punctuated by chalky white eruptions, delicate linear drips, and fissured textures creates the sensation of tactile relief—like fossilized gestures or calligraphic marks hovering on a dark void.

By isolating and reframing urban surfaces as nonrepresentational images, Siskind helped extend photography into the realm of abstract expression, showing that photographs could convey texture, emotion, and formal invention as powerfully as painting.

Palette

Art Terms

Gelatin silverprint (developing-out paper) Photography Abstraction Abstract Expressionism New York School Monochrome Gestural

Exhibitions

Sixty Photographs: A Survey of Camera Esthetics

1940

New York/New York

1978

Rooms

1976

Siskind from the Collection

1989