Wall and Unmade Bed, Washington, DC
1972
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
gold-toned gelatin silver print
Dimensions
image: 10 × 10.2 cm (3 15/16 × 4 in.) sheet: 20.2 × 25.3 cm (7 15/16 × 9 15/16 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Fern M. Schad
Accession Number
2012.123.14
Art Historical Context
Nancy Rexroth's *Wall and Unmade Bed Washington, DC* (1972) offers an intimate glimpse into everyday domestic life through the lens of a gold-toned gelatin silver print This small-scale image, measuring just 10 × 10.2 cm, captures a rumpled bed against a plain wall, evoking a of quiet vulnerability and transience. The gold toning lends a warm, archival glow to the gelatin silver process—a standard black-and-white photographic technique from the era—enhancing depth and longevity while softening the scene's stark realism. Rexroth, a pioneering American photographer active in the 1970s, was know...
About the Artist
Nancy Rexroth
Nancy Rexroth, born in 1946 in Washington, D.C., and raised in the suburbs of Arlington, Virginia, drew early inspiration from childhood summer visits to relatives in Iowa, which infused her work with a sense of exotic, dreamlike rural memory. She earned a BFA in English from American University, where she developed an interest in photojournalism influenced by masters like Emmet Gowin, Robert Fran...