Object number2022.3.5
Returning Home, Masaya
Date1978
Artist
Susan Meiselas
(American, born 1948)
CultureAmerican
MediumChromogenic print; printed 2015
EditionEdition 3 of 12
Edition of 12 + 2 APs
DimensionsImage: 16 x 24 in. (40.6 x 61 cm)
Sheet: 18 1/4 x 26 1/4 in. (46.4 x 66.7 cm)
Sheet: 18 1/4 x 26 1/4 in. (46.4 x 66.7 cm)
Credit LinePurchase, gift of Mrs. Frederick Ferris Thompson, by exchange
On View
Not on viewPeriod20th c
Classification(s)
SignedOn verso, signed in black ink on label in lower right corner: Susan Meiselas
InscribedOn verso, typed on white label in lower right corner: Returning Home, Masaya, 1978 / is a chromogenic print made under my supervision / by Esteban Mauchi at Laumont, NYC, 2022 / This is a print n°3/12 20 x 30" / [signature] / Susan Meiselas.
ProvenanceHigh Pictures Generation GalleryVassar Exhibitions
Label TextMade in July 1978, Returning Home, Massaya captures a woman navigating the ruins of her neighborhood after three days of aerial bombardment by the Nicaraguan dictator Somoza’s National Guard. Her arms are full of salvaged belongings, yet her stance is upright and composed. Susan Meiselas, a member of Magnum Photos, arrived in Nicaragua without assignment and embedded herself with civilians and revolutionary fighters at the outset of the Sandinista uprising. Working across moments of combat and reprieve, she moved alongside the people she photographed, forming relationships over repeated return trips. The photograph shows the immediate aftermath of violence—people sorting through what can be recovered, what remains usable. Meiselas’s camera records both destruction and persistence. Published in her landmark 1981 photobook Nicaragua, this work documents the intimate labor of survival.
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Susan Meiselas
1978
Culture: American
Susan Meiselas
1978
Culture: American
