Sunday Best, Living Room, 1950s

Archive & AtlasEstablished · MMXXIII

Sunday Best, Living Room, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

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Sunday Best, Living Room, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

Unattributed 1952–1958

AA-2026-2244B3

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A girl of about seven sits in the good armchair in the good room, dressed with the full seriousness the 1950s brought to the category of 'having your picture taken.' The plaid jumper, the matched red socks, the patent leather shoes — someone spent a Saturday afternoon on this coordination, because presenting a child to a camera was understood to be a formal occasion requiring formal preparation. A boy edges into the right side of the frame in a plaid shirt of his own, seated but clearly not the point, which he appears to have accepted. The living room behind them has the look of a room kept ready: the fringed chair, the floral drapes, the tiered side table holding almost nothing — a room that existed to be seen in rather than lived in. The girl looks directly into the camera with the expression of a child who has been told to sit still and is doing exactly that, which in the 1950s was considered the same thing as smiling.

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