Getty Curator Karen Hellman: A Symbol of Vision

“The window metaphorically represents the boundary between the mind and the world. In the nineteenth century, particularly in the early decades leading up to the advent of photography, the window emerged as a symbol of vision. As in the work of Romantic painters like Caspar David Friedrich, it conveys the connection between the inner perspective of the artist and the outside world. Photographs by Karl Strüss, Edward Weston and Alfred Stieglitz in the exhibition take up this idea photographically – each posing his female partner at a window, consciously or unconsciously referencing Friedrich’s wife, who posed for Woman at the Window.”

—Karen Hellman, assistant curator in the Department of Photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum