Untitled (two children sitting on bottom of staircase with toys strewn around them) after 1940

Paul Gittings created this black and white photograph of two children sometime in the 20th century. I’m immediately drawn to the children sitting on those stairs, looking somewhere out of frame. What are they thinking? What are they looking at? Perhaps the toys strewn across the carpet are evidence of their play, and the children are taking a moment to pause and rest. Those stairs seem like a boundary or border to their childhood games and adventures. The beauty of photography, like painting, is its capacity to capture a single moment that then reverberates outward. It’s as though Gittings has preserved a slice of life, an ordinary, everyday tableau that invites us to reflect on the nature of childhood, family, and memory. I think of painters like Fairfield Porter who also depicted domestic scenes with a quiet, contemplative gaze. It makes you wonder about the conversations artists are having, even across different mediums and generations.