Untitled (portrait of a deceased woman wearing flowered dress and glasses) 1945 - 1949

Curator: This rather haunting 8x10 inch image by John Deusing, held in the Harvard Art Museums, is an untitled portrait of a deceased woman in a flowered dress and glasses. Editor: My first impression is one of a quiet, unsettling beauty, almost like a surreal dreamscape. The high contrast and the stark black and white palette really heighten the sense of otherworldly calm. Curator: It's a very intimate, yet detached, portrayal of death. I find myself wondering about the sitter. Was this image intended as a keepsake? A memento mori? Editor: I see it as a statement about societal rituals around death, how we attempt to sanitize and beautify the inevitable. Her flowered dress, the arrangement of plants, it’s all part of a performance. Curator: Performance, yes, but perhaps also tenderness. There’s a vulnerability in presenting someone so exposed, so completely at rest. Does that resonate, given the cultural context? Editor: It does, but I also see a power dynamic at play. Who has the right to depict death, and for what purpose? Is this offering solace, or exploiting a deeply personal moment? Curator: Perhaps it's both. The image captures the strange duality of death itself: simultaneously intimate and profoundly public. Editor: It makes me reflect on how we memorialize the deceased and the ways in which gender, race, and class shape those practices. Curator: For me, the image serves as a reminder of our shared mortality, offering a moment for contemplation within the museum space. Editor: And for me, it’s a call to critically examine the historical power dynamics that shape such representations of death.