Untitled (four smiling girls and baby, all in a line) c. 1950

Editor: This photograph, simply titled "Untitled (four smiling girls and baby, all in a line)" by Lucian and Mary Brown, presents a kind of eerie innocence, maybe because of the negative effect. What strikes you about it? Curator: It feels like a memory, doesn't it? The reversed tones create a dreamlike quality. I'm drawn to the rhythm created by the girls' poses. Do you think they posed themselves or were directed? Editor: I hadn't considered that! It does look carefully arranged. Maybe that adds to the sense of... something not quite real. Curator: Exactly! It's the tension between candid joy and constructed artifice. A beautiful little dance between memory and imagination. Editor: So true. I guess I see it differently now. Curator: Wonderful. That's the magic of art, isn't it?