Allentown Art Museum
Allentown, PA
610-432-4333
Photographic Tableaux: Tina Barney's Family
Album
The Allentown Art Museum announces
Photographic Tableaux: Tina Barney's Family Album, opening on July
11, and on view through September 19, 1999.
For two decades,
Tina Barney has chronicled her life and the lives of those closest to her
in large format color photographs. This exhibition, comprised of some thirty
works, brings together for the first time the early compressed images with
her recent more minimal works. She is the intimate observer of the rituals
and customs of her circle of family and friends, played out against a backdrop
of richly textured interiors and lushly landscaped exteriors. The barbecue,
the conversation, the reading of the Sunday New York Times -- all
become compelling subjects for Barney's penetrating eye.
Barney began photographing in the mid-1970s and first used
a 35 mm camera, working the "street" tradition of 
Cartier-Bresson, which
is not unlike the taking of a spontaneous family snapshot. When she began
to use a large format 4 x 5-inch camera in the early 1980s, she was able
to capture extraordinary detail and rich color. She lost none of the immediacy
of the moment, and produced tableaux that are masterfully composed glimpses
into the lives of those depicted in her family album. This exhibition was
organized by the Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio.
Images from top to bottom: Sunday New York Times , 1982, chromogenic
color print, Courtesy Janet Borden, Inc. N.Y.; ]ill and Polly in Bathroom,
1987, chromogenic color print, Collection of Mr. Ealan Wingate, N.Y.
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about the Allentown Art Museum.
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and essays on American art in Resource Library. See America's Distinguished Artists
for biographical information on historic artists.
This page was originally published in 1999 in Resource
Library Magazine. Please see Resource Library's Overview section for
more information.
Copyright 2012 Traditional
Fine Arts Organization, Inc., an Arizona nonprofit
corporation. All rights reserved.
For two decades,
Tina Barney has chronicled her life and the lives of those closest to her
in large format color photographs. This exhibition, comprised of some thirty
works, brings together for the first time the early compressed images with
her recent more minimal works. She is the intimate observer of the rituals
and customs of her circle of family and friends, played out against a backdrop
of richly textured interiors and lushly landscaped exteriors. The barbecue,
the conversation, the reading of the Sunday New York Times -- all
become compelling subjects for Barney's penetrating eye.