{"id":393,"date":"2012-02-02T22:12:09","date_gmt":"2012-02-03T06:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fraenkelgallery.badfeather.com\/?post_type=fraenkel_artist&p=393"},"modified":"2024-07-11T17:11:55","modified_gmt":"2024-07-12T00:11:55","slug":"ej-bellocq","status":"publish","type":"fraenkel_artist","link":"https:\/\/fraenkelgallery.com\/artists\/ej-bellocq","title":{"rendered":"E.J. Bellocq"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

E.J. Bellocq remains an ambiguous figure in history. Following his death in 1949, eighty-nine glass plate negatives of portraits of female prostitutes from Storyville, New Orleans\u2019s semi-legal red-light district, were found in his desk. All of the images were taken circa 1912, and depict with surprising tenderness fashionable dressed and nude women in a brothel\u2019s interior and outdoor spaces. \u201cThe pictures themselves suggest that they were not made on assignment, but as a personal adventure,\u201d John Szarkowski wrote in a 1970 book that\u00a0 accompanied an exhibition of the photographs at the Museum of Modern Art. \u201cThey possess a sense of leisure in the making,\u201d which suggested that \u201cBellocq photographed the women of Storyville because he found them irresistibly compelling,\u201d Szarkowski noted. Nan Goldin, in an essay in Artforum<\/em>, called the images \u201camong the most profound and beautiful portraits of prostitutes ever taken.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Storyville Portrait<\/span>, ca. 1912<\/span><\/div>\n
printing out paper, gold-toned<\/span>, 10 x 8 inches (image & sheet) [25.4 x 20.3 cm]<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n