"We lived in our house for a year without furniture" (diptych)

"We lived in our house for a year without furniture" (diptych)

Artist Bill Owens (American, born 1938)

Dateca. 1975

MediumGelatin silver prints

DimensionsImage (.4283): 5 3/4 × 8 3/8 inches (14.61 × 21.27 cm)
Image (.4284): 5 3/4 × 8 1/2 inches (14.61 × 21.59 cm)
Sheet (.4283): 8 × 10 inches (20.32 × 25.4 cm)
Sheet (.4284): 8 × 9 15/16 inches (20.32 × 25.24 cm)

Credit LineGift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.

Object number2005.27.4283,4284

Signed4283: Signed on sheet verso, center, in black pencil: "Bill Owens (A); Artist's stamp on sheet verso, top, in red ink with pencil: "© PHOTO - BILL OWENS / USE OF ABOVE CREDIT LINE / IS MANDATORY. / Black Star"; Artist's stamp on sheet verso, center, in black ink with black pen: "COPYRIGHT PHOTO / Not to be reproduced / without written permission of / BILL OWENS / Black Star / 2939 Minna Avenue / Oakland, Calif. 94619 [ crossed out] / 1015 Lambaren / Livermore Ca / 94550"; Artist's stamp on sheet verso, bottom, in black ink: "BILL OWENS / PHOTOGRAPHER / 268 YOSEMITE DR. / LIVERMORE, CA 94550". 4284: Signed on sheet verso, center, in blakc pen: "Bill Owens (B)".

Inscribed4283:none 4284: On sheet verso, lower left edge, in blue pen: "BOOK PRINT: SUBURBIA"; On sheet verso, lower left edge, in pencil: "Suburbia Book Print".

Markings4283: On sheet recto, bottom, in blue pen: "#26c 55% [crossed out] / 56 1/2 / FULL/FRAME"; On sheet verso, upper right, in black pen: "AP-34"; On sheet verso, bottom, in red pencil, crossed out in black pen: "82% 2NP MAT"; On sheet verso, lower left 56 1/2 / 13-155"; On sheet verso, bottom, in pencil: "27, 1.76", "PF25789 (sold as a diptych w/PF25790)"; "632-1-99". 4284: "On sheet verso, top, in pencil: "1347 6/17"; On sheet verso, upper right, stamps in black ink: "02930 / 04322 / 05310"; On sheet verso, lower left, in black pen: "A-85"; On sheet verso, bottom, in pencil: "PF25790 (sold as diptych w/PF25789)", "632-2-99"

On View

Not on view

Collections

Photography

Terms

DescriptionDiptych:
Image of a man and woman standing with arms around one another in middle an unfurnished room with a curtained window on the left;
Image of a man and woman standing with arms around one another in middle of a furnished room decorated for Christmas.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Rotation 25. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, October 19, 2018- March 17, 2019, no cat.

Gallery Label

Bill Owens’s work provides a witty view of middleclass suburban America. For his book Suburbia and related projects, Owens photographed and interviewed residents of three suburban California communities. The pairing of images and texts offers humorous, candid insights into the lives of the people. His subjects enjoyed their suburban lifestyle and in Owens’s words, had “realized the American Dream.”

Provenance

Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York, NY;
Purchased from Howard Greenberg Gallery by Hallmark Cards, Inc., Kansas City, MO, 1999;
Given by Hallmark Cards, Inc. to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2005.

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