Two Men Crouching in a Garden, White-Rendered House, 1950s

Archive & AtlasEstablished · MMXXIII

Two Men Crouching in a Garden, White-Rendered House, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

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Two Men Crouching in a Garden, White-Rendered House, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

Unattributed 1950–1959

AA-2026-0673FA

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Sometime in the 1950s, two middle-aged men crouched down at the edge of a garden bed and held that position long enough for someone to take their picture. This was the standard posture of the era's serious home gardener — knees bent, forearms resting on thighs, the whole body lowered to communicate that what was growing in that border mattered and deserved to be met at its own level. The white-rendered wall and shuttered windows behind them, along with the decorative wrought-iron gate and the architectural planting of agaves, suggest a property somewhere in the drier parts of the American Southwest or possibly South Africa — somewhere that required plants with opinions about drought.

The ceramic swan ornament tucked into the ground cover between them was, in the 1950s, considered a finishing touch rather than a problem. Both men are dressed as though they stepped outside from something more formal — collared shirts, slacks, leather shoes — which means the garden inspection was unplanned, the way garden inspections always are when one man wants to show another man what he has achieved with very little water.

The photographer stationed them symmetrically, flanking the plants like bookends, which is how you posed people in front of things you were proud of. Neither man looks especially proud. They look like men who have agreed to crouch.

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