Skip to main content
Artist/Maker
Bill McDowell
(American, born 1956)
Publisher
Light Work, Syracuse, NY
Date2015
MediumArchival inkjet print
DimensionsImage: 7 1/2 × 12 1/2 in. (19.1 × 31.8 cm)
Sheet: 11 × 17 in. (27.9 × 43.2 cm)
Credit LinePurchase, The Wynant J. Williams '35 Art Collection Fund
Object number2020.8.6
Not on view
Description"Bill McDowell is a photographer living in Plattsburgh, New York. This diptych of two images is from his project Ground, a series of photographs taken from the Farm Security Administration (FSA) archive of “killed” negatives. These negatives that had been damaged with a hole punch by the FSA staff in the 1930s. McDowell’s sequence of photographs relates to land and agriculture, and is mediated by the manner in which the killed negative’s black hole abstracts subject, space, and time. With this, he creates a dense narrative connecting contemporary and Great Depression Americas." (SOURCE: Light Work, Syracuse, NY)
Additional Details
Provenance
2020: Hamilton College (Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art), by purchase from Light Work, Syracuse, NY.
Markings
No markings noted.
Signature
Signed "Bill MCDowell" on verso at left center in pencil.
Inscribed
"27/50" on verso at left center in pencil.
Eve Sussman
Date: 2012
Medium: Stereoscope viewer with 33mm negatives
Object number: 2012.2.1
Eve Sussman
Date: 2012
Medium: Stereoscope viewer with 33mm negatives
Object number: 2012.2.2
Eugène Atget
Date: c. 1910, printed later
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Object number: 1982.11
Ilse Bing
Date: June 8, 1937 (printed 1984)
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Object number: 2015.11.2
Paul Strand
Date: 1915 (published October 1916)
Medium: Photogravure on Japan paper
Object number: 1993.6
Kelli Connell
Date: 2008
Medium: Pigmented inkjet print
Object number: 2012.1.1
LaToya Ruby Frazier
Date: 2017
Medium: Four cyanotypes
Object number: 2017.4a-d
Julia Margaret Cameron
Date: 1867 (published 1893)
Medium: Photogravure, mounted on matboard
Object number: 1990.6
Griffith & Griffith
Date: c. 1897
Medium: Albumen prints mounted on cardboard
Object number: S2023.1.36