Untitled (guests eating at dinner party) c. 1950

Curator: This is an Untitled photograph by Lucian and Mary Brown, currently held at the Harvard Art Museums. It shows guests eating at a dinner party. Editor: It has a rather ghostly effect, like a faded memory. The stark contrasts between light and dark amplify a sense of unsettling formality. Curator: Note how the inverted tones destabilize our reading of form. The original textures and light gradations are abstracted into something almost alien. Editor: The man with his arm raised – what does that gesture signify within the context of social norms of the time? Is it celebration, command, or something else entirely? It makes me think about gender roles in mid-century America. Curator: The composition leads the eye along the table, a visual path created by carefully arranged floral centerpieces. Editor: It's an uncanny slice of life, isn't it? I am curious how photographic processes during that era impacted ideas about identity. Curator: Precisely! It certainly offers an intriguing study of reversed tones.