Facade, Chicago, Composite with Shirley Berman

Photographer: Edmund Teske, American, 1911–1996
Date: 1957
Material: Gelatin silver print
photographed in: Chicago, Illinois, United States, North and Central America
Classification: Photographs
Collection: Prints, Drawings, and Photographs
Current Location: Not on view
Dimensions: image: 11 in. × 10 1/4 in. (27.9 × 26 cm)
mount: 16 in. × 10 3/4 in. (40.6 × 27.3 cm)
Overall: 26 1/2 × 20 in. (67.3 × 50.8 cm)
framed: 20 3/8 × 15 3/8 in. (51.8 × 39.1 cm)
Credit Line: Funds given by the National Endowment for the Arts and matching funds given by anonymous donors
Rights: Saint Louis Art Museum
© Estate of Edmund Teske
Object Number: 168:1978

NOTES

Edmund Teske was equally interested in portraiture and architecture. He occasionally took the step of creating composite photographs such as this from negatives taken in different times. Here, a female face superimposed on the side of a building creates an enigmatic, dreamlike image. Her soft features and closed eyes evoke a contemplative mood, set against the rough exterior of a house. The building, in a steel industry shantytown on the outskirts of Chicago, is transformed from its ramshackle state into something imaginative, almost theatrical.

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