Ancestors, October 25, 1917
Artist
Lincoln Hale Turner
(b. 1961)
Date2006
MediumKallitype print
Dimensions10 1/2 x 10 in (each)
ClassificationsPhotograph
Credit LineGift of the artist
Object number2006.13_2
DescriptionLincoln Hale Turner combined 19th, 20th and 21st century technology with his own conceptual and aesthetic sensibility to create Heirloom, a body of work which tells the story of its fictional character, Hattie Taylor (1895-1989) from Southport, Connecticut. After finding an antique anonymous photo-postcard of a group of people in a large room illuminated by glowing light, Turner was inspired to create a story for the picture, giving identities to the sitters and imaging the circumstances that brought them together. Particularly intriguing was a young woman singled out in the photograph by the word "me" written in ink with an arrow pointing down toward her head. She became the heroine of the story and was named "Hattie Taylor", after the artist's grandmother. Heirloom, to which Ancestors, October 25, 1917 belongs, represents a page from Hattie's fictional photographic diary. Each image originated from tintypes and other antique photographs that Turner scanned into a computer, enlarged, and reprinted as film negatives to be used in a contact printing process. By taking it upon himself to name and re-contextualize unidentifiable portraits, Lincoln draws our attention to the ambiguity of the photograph as an artifact and to the viewer's role in assigning it meaning.
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