Real Estate #905017
1990
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
chromogenic print
Dimensions
image: 15.24 × 22.86 cm (6 × 9 in.) sheet: 20.32 × 25.4 cm (8 × 10 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of David Knaus, in Honor of the 25th Anniversary of Photography at the National Gallery of Art
Accession Number
2014.159.1.24
Art Historical Context
Henry Wessel's *Real Estate #905017* (1990), a chrom print measuring 15.24 × 22.86 cm, invites viewers into the quiet drama of American suburbia. Captured at the tail end of the 20th century, this photograph exemplifies Wessel's signature style: a cool, observational gaze on the built environment. Known for his deadpan depictions of urban edges and vacant spaces—often tied to real estate signage—the title hints at a meditation on property, transience, and human imprint on the land, themes resonant in the New Topographics movement of the 1970s and beyond. The chromogenic print medium, a color ...
About the Artist
Henry Wessel
Henry Wessel (1942–2018) was an American photographer celebrated for his spare, clear-eyed photographs of everyday life in the American West and beyond. Born in Teaneck, New Jersey, he studied at Pennsylvania State University and later at the State University of New York at Buffalo, where he worked with the influential photographer Minor White. White's emphasis on photography as a medium of carefu...