Skip to main content
Artist/Maker
Rhona Bitner
(American, born 1960)
Date2020
MediumSilver gelatin prints
DimensionsOverall: 4 1/2 × 6 in. (11.4 × 15.2 cm)
Credit LineGift of the artist. Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, Clinton, NY.
Object number2024.7.9.1-84a
Not on view
DescriptionIn the early days of the pandemic in 2020, Bitner, a native New Yorker, walked the streets of her hometown with a small digital camera, visiting locations that rekindled personal memories. Here the works are displayed as postcards, evocative of messages sent from a faraway place. Shot in black and white, the images recall the architectural photography of Berenice Abbott who began documenting the modernization of New York City in the 1930s and Eugène Atget who photographed disappearing neighborhoods in fin-de-siècle Paris. The title of the series refers to the naked bulb left burning on center stage as a safety measure when a theater is completely dark. Bitner notes, “Its other function is superstitious, to light the way for ghosts said to inhabit virtually every theater.”
Collections
Additional Details
Eugène Atget
Date: c. 1910, printed later
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Object number: 1982.11
Rhona Bitner
Date: 2022
Medium: Archival pigment print
Object number: 2024.7.1
Rhona Bitner
Date: October 29, 2008 (printed 2013)
Medium: Chromogenic print mounted on aluminum
Object number: 2014.3.1
Rhona Bitner
Date: 2000
Medium: Cibachrome print
Object number: 2024.7.2
Rhona Bitner
Date: 1999
Medium: Cibachrome print
Object number: 2024.7.5
Rhona Bitner
Date: 1994
Medium: Fujiflex print
Object number: 2024.7.4
Rhona Bitner
Date: 2000
Medium: Fujiflex print
Object number: 2024.7.3
Toyokuni III
Date: 1852
Medium: Polychrome woodblock print on two sheets of paper
Object number: 1994.92
Rhona Bitner
Date: October 28, 2008, printed 2013
Medium: Chromogenic print, mounted on aluminum
Object number: 2014.3.2
Unknown artist
Date: published 1865
Medium: Hand-colored lithograph
Object number: 1959.8