Untitled
Series TitleThe Adolescent Comedy
Artist
Joseph Sterling
(American, 1936 - 2010)
Date1959-1962
MediumGelatin silver print
DimensionsImage and sheet: 9 × 6 inches (22.86 × 15.24 cm)
Mount: 20 × 15 inches (50.8 × 38.1 cm)
Mount: 20 × 15 inches (50.8 × 38.1 cm)
Credit LineGift of the Hall Family Foundation
Object number2017.68.179
SignedOn mount verso, bottom, in pencil: “Joseph Sterling”
InscribedTyped label attached to mount verso, in black: “THE ADOLESCENT COMEDY / Joseph Sterling / Plate No. 21”
MarkingsOn mount verso, bottom, in pencil: “307-8”;
On mount verso, lower right, in pencil: “032.417.3.11”.
On View
Not on viewCollections
DescriptionGroup of young men and woman standing on sidewalk beside bus. Behind them is a neon sign hanging in a window.Gallery LabelFrom 1959–1964, Joseph Sterling photographed mostly white teenagers in Chicago, Texas, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Miami, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota. The product of the post-war American “baby boom,” the newly distinct category of “teenager” became a source of endless fascination in popular culture throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Intimate yet detached, the photograph by Sterling, taken through a diner window, emphasizes the emotional, generational, and physical distance that separated him from his youthful, preoccupied subjects.
Purchased from Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago, Il by the Hall Family Foundation, Kansas City, MO, 2017;
Given by the Hall Family Founsation to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2017.
Given by the Hall Family Founsation to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2017.
Copyright© Estate of Joseph Sterling
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