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Untitled, from the Bridal Series

Petah Coyne (American, born in 1953)
2001

Medium/Technique Photograph, gelatin silver print
Dimensions Framed: 105.4 × 73 × 2.5 cm (41 1/2 × 28 3/4 × 1 in.)
Sheet: 96.8 × 64.1 cm (38 1/8 × 25 1/4 in.)
Credit Line Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Fund for Photography
Accession Number2002.391
NOT ON VIEW
ClassificationsPhotographs
Although contemporary artist Petah Coyne is best known as a sculptor, in 2001 she made a series of grainy, soft-focus photographs of brides and debutantes. This large-format image of the frothy folds of a wedding gown seems an unusual choice for a feminist artist in her fifties, but Coyne's photographs have more to do with Charles Dickens's Miss Havisham left at the altar than with any youthful notions of love. She creates on the run, spinning and jumping and chasing her subjects, all the while clicking the camera shutter. Her ephemeral and fragmentary photographs are closely related to her sculptures, which are sometimes fabricated out of layer upon layer of melted white wax.

ProvenanceJudy Ann Goldman, Boston; purchased by MFA Sept. 25, 2002
Copyright© Petah Coyne