Untitled (Boy sitting on staircase)

In the late 1950s, Ralph Eugene Meatyard-a practicing optician in Lexington, Kentucky-began a series of photographs he described as "uncanny," which to him "gave the feeling of being not quite of this world." Children-often his own sons--figured prominently in these evocative photographs. Posed in dark, abandoned interiors or shown wearing Halloween masks, Meatyard's children function symbolically, as young protagonists in a mysterious realm of fear and adventure, alienation and imagination.