AA-2026-C4909B
On the image
Three girls sit on a patterned sofa in a domestic interior, the youngest holding an acoustic guitar across her lap, the middle one a saxophone, the oldest a trumpet. The room contains the decorative apparatus of postwar American comfort: a lamp with a pleated shade, patterned upholstery, sequined curtains. This was the era when parents believed that giving children instruments and a living room would produce a musical act, and the children understood they were meant to cooperate with the idea. The girls face the camera with the compliant, slightly bewildered expressions of people who have been asked to hold something and smile, not realizing that what they held — the assumption that a family could simply decide to be musical together — would outlast every object in the frame.
Visually related — by likeness
Three Girls with Instruments in a 1950s Living Room. 1950–1959. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-C4909B. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/three-girls-with-instruments-in-a-1950s-living-room.
@misc{aaAA2026C4909B,
title = {Three Girls with Instruments in a 1950s Living Room},
year = {1950–1959},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-C4909B},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/three-girls-with-instruments-in-a-1950s-living-room}
}TY - ART TI - Three Girls with Instruments in a 1950s Living Room PY - 1950–1959 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-C4909B UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/three-girls-with-instruments-in-a-1950s-living-room ER -
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