Object number1987.53.90
Silhouette of Figure between Two Buildings, Kuwait
Date1955
Artist
Rosalie Thorne McKenna
(American, 1918-2003)
CultureAmerican
MediumGelatin silver print
DimensionsImage: 6 11/16 x 5 5/8 in. (17 x 14.3 cm)
Matted: 22 x 16 in. (55.9 x 40.6 cm)
Matted: 22 x 16 in. (55.9 x 40.6 cm)
Credit LineGift of the artist
On View
Not on viewPeriod20th c
Classification(s)
InscribedOn verso, possibly by artist, center in pencil: Kuwait; in ink: , 1955; by unidentified hand, lower right corner in pencil: 87.53.90
MarkingsOn verso, stamped upper center: PHOTO BY: / ROLLIE MCKENNA / 438 EAST 88 STREET / NEW YORK 28, N. Y. / TEL. ENRIGHT 9-3889 / Not To Be Reproduced / Without Permission. / Please Credit With Photo; stamped over 88th St. stamp: THIS PHOTOGRAPH MAY NOT BE / REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM WITHOUT / THE WRITTEN CONSENT OF / R. THORNE McKENNA / MILLBROOK, NEW YORK; stamped center [year scribbled out]: NOV 1950; partially obscured stamp lower center: PHOTO BY: R. THORNE McKENNA / [copyright credit label] / Please Credit With Photo
On printed label, on verso lower center: © Rollie McKenna / 1 Hancox Street / Stonington, CT 06378 / (203) 535-0110/2126
BibliographyRosalie Thorne McKenna, Rollie McKenna: A Life in Photography (New York: Knopf, 1991), 121. ProvenanceGift of the artistVassar Exhibitions
Label TextMcKenna’s personal travels often yielded unexpected subject matter and allowed her to experiment with her medium free from the parameters of assignments. Though women were rarely invited to visit Kuwait in the 1950s, McKenna and her traveling companion Pamela Preston accompanied two nephews of the ruling Sheik and Ezzat Gaaffa, the Sheik’s secretary. This extraordinary opportunity was one of McKenna’s earliest trips abroad. She photographed there with a Rolleiflex and a Leica III F that she bought at a bazaar—both portable and easy to use while traveling. She was so eager to see the photographs from this trip that she “processed the film in 80-degree murky water at the 100-degree lab of the Kuwait Oil Company,” according to her own recollection. In 1960, when her father Henry Thorne passed away, McKenna inherited a property known as The Bang Bang Club, a bonefishing camp located on Andros Island in the Bahamas. She eventually sold the property to an oceanographer but first took the opportunity to photograph “anything that caught my eye,” as she remembered. The resulting pictures continued to hone her observations of people, architecture, and the geometry of place.
DescriptionDark silhouetted figure walking on sand between two buildings toward beach where there two partial figures can be seenTerms
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Rosalie Thorne McKenna
1953
Culture: American
