Peeling Paint

Aaron Siskind

c. 1950

A gelatin silver photograph of peeling paint in which Siskind isolates flaking surfaces and transforms urban decay into an abstract study of shape, light, and texture.

It reads like a spare black-and-white landscape—islandlike, gravelly interiors rimmed by ragged, delicate edges set against broad, smooth tonal fields that make the scale feel ambiguous.

Part of Siskind’s move to bring Abstract Expressionist concerns into photography, this image helped legitimize the camera as a means to create nonrepresentational, painterly studies of everyday surfaces.

Palette

Art Terms

Gelatin silverprint (developing-out paper) Photography Abstract Expressionism Abstraction Monochrome New York School Figure/ground relationship

Exhibitions

Siskind from the Collection

1989

Siskind Recently

1965

Rooms

1976

New York/New York

1978