Menelek
1896/1902
Medium
Platinum print
Dimensions
Image/paper: 14.7 × 11.5 cm (5 13/16 × 4 9/16 in.); First mount: 14.8 × 11.7 cm (5 7/8 × 4 5/8 in.); Second mount: 36.2 × 27.4 cm (14 5/16 × 10 13/16 in.)
Classification
platinum print
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
66773
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
F. Holland Day played a key role in the international Pictorialist movement that gained strength around 1900. Pictorialists believed that photography could be a vehicle for personal expression. They employed soft focus, borrowed compositions from paintings, and presented their work as fine art—for example, surrounding the image with one or more layers of tinted paper. Day, a flamboyant presence, dressed his frequent model J. Alexandre Skeete in elaborate costumes for a series of photographs evok...