Brown's Face 1939

Nathan Lerner made this gelatin silver print, Brown’s Face, and its all about getting up close and personal with the process. There's no fancy color work here, just a study in black and white, and the tonality has a lot of depth. The beauty of this piece really lies in its surface. You can almost feel the texture of the paper, the grain of the image adding another layer of depth to the work. It's not just a photograph, it's an object. Take a look at the mouth and teeth; you can almost feel the texture and shape of each tooth. The dark space around the form of the face gives it this real presence. Lerner’s work reminds me a bit of some of those early surrealist photographers, playing with scale and perspective to mess with your head, like Man Ray for example. All these artists invite you to see the world a little differently, and recognize that art can be anything.