Untitled (woman's legs and shoes) c. 1950

Curator: This is an untitled photograph by Jack Gould, currently held at the Harvard Art Museums. It depicts a woman’s legs and shoes against an urban backdrop. Editor: It's striking how the inverted tones create a sort of ghostly, ethereal quality. The shoes look almost like glass slippers against the harsh cityscape. Curator: The shoes, the dress, the very pose evoke a specific era, don't they? A kind of mid-century aspiration for modernity and femininity, crystallized in these objects. Editor: Absolutely. And the material itself, the photographic print, speaks to that period's technologies and the democratizing potential of image making. Curator: Yes. The anonymity, too, is interesting. The averted gaze, the faceless subject. It’s a portrait of an idea, perhaps, rather than an individual. Editor: Precisely, the picture acts as a study of social fabrication. Curator: A powerful distillation of a time, captured in a fleeting, everyday moment. Editor: The inversion really highlights the process involved in its creation, rather than being purely representational.