Untitled (photograph of woman's head, neck and shoulders, head tilted back) c. 1940

This is an untitled photograph by Paul Gittings, now in the Harvard Art Museums collection. At first glance, the stark contrast between the dark background and the ethereal, almost translucent image of a woman's head and shoulders captivates us. The head is tilted back, creating elegant lines from the neck to the chin. It is framed by a thin, white border that isolates the image within the larger photographic plate. The negative space surrounding the portrait emphasizes the delicate contours of her face and neck. The inversion of light and shadow prompts us to consider photography not just as a medium for capturing reality, but as a means of abstracting and re-presenting it. This tension between presence and absence, reality and representation, destabilizes our conventional understanding of portraiture. It encourages us to think about how photographic images can challenge fixed meanings.