Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art

About this Work

Aaron Siskind’s gestural wall pictures recall Abstract Expressionism’s rejection of illusionistic pictorial space and embrace of the work’s inherent two-dimensional flatness. Whereas his painterly peers used smears and dips to articulate the surface, Siskind used light.

Frequently exhibiting with friends such as Franz Kline, Siskind was equally influential. His visual calligraphy mixed Dadaist found objects and collage elements with the formalism of the Bauhaus. His impact on photography was summed up by IU professor of photography Henry Holmes Smith, who said that “because of Siskind’s contribution, photography has finally completed its journey into the twentieth century.”

Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art’s collection includes two other works from Siskind’s Chicago series: Chicago 1 (Eskenazi Museum of Art 200. X.7.10) and Chicago 85 (Eskenazi Museum of Art 200. X.7.7).