Untitled (portrait of woman in large hat with flowers) c. 1945

Paul Gittings created this ‘Untitled’ portrait photograph of a woman wearing a large hat, the work is currently housed in the Harvard Art Museums. The photographic negative offers a unique visual experience, reversing light and shadow to create an ethereal and unsettling effect. The composition centers on the woman’s face, framed by the dramatic brim of her hat and softened by the surrounding floral arrangement. The reversal of tones gives the image a ghostly quality, highlighting the textures of the flowers and the smooth contours of the woman’s face, thus drawing attention to the constructed nature of the photographic image. The visual inversion challenges our perception of reality, prompting us to question the photograph’s truthfulness. The portrait destabilizes conventional notions of beauty, replacing them with a stark, almost surreal representation. This disruption encourages a deeper engagement with the underlying structures of representation, reminding us that every image is a construct, shaped by the artist’s choices.