Untitled (people walking along beach) c. 1935

Curator: C. Bennette Moore's "Untitled (people walking along beach)," part of the Harvard Art Museums collection, presents a rather stark and shadowy scene. The dimensions are modest, a mere 5 by 7 inches. Editor: It’s so evocative, like a half-remembered dream, full of ghostly figures. Is it a photograph or some kind of experimental print? Curator: It certainly plays with light and shadow in a very deliberate way. Moore seems to capture a specific time, perhaps of social rituals, or perhaps it comments on leisure as a performative social act. Editor: I wonder what was Moore trying to express, setting a scene like this. It seems almost theatrical. A stage upon which something is about to happen, or has already happened. Curator: Perhaps that ambiguity is precisely the point! Moore offers us a glimpse into a bygone era, seen through a very particular lens. Editor: A glimpse indeed. It's like looking into the past through a cracked mirror.