Untitled (Three Men on Bench)
Artist
Gay Block
(American, born 1942)
Date1982-1985 (printed 2011)
Mediumpigment print
DimensionsMat: 27 1/2 × 33 1/2 in. (69.9 × 85.1 cm)
Support: 24 × 32 1/8 in. (61 × 81.6 cm)
Image: 23 1/2 × 29 9/16 in. (59.7 × 75.1 cm)
Support: 24 × 32 1/8 in. (61 × 81.6 cm)
Image: 23 1/2 × 29 9/16 in. (59.7 × 75.1 cm)
ClassificationsPhotograph
Credit LineMuseum purchase with funds from Edward Osowski in honor of Anne Wilkes Tucker, 2015
Object number2015.13
DescriptionThree mean in suits and hats sitting on a green bench in an outdoor setting. A section of grass is behind them with a sign reading “CURB YOUR DOG” and beyond that are a line of trees and the ocean. The two men on the ends have their legs cross while the man in the middle is gesturing with his left hand.Text Entries
Fascinated
by the Jewish inhabitants of South Beach, in Miami, Florida, Gay Block made
portraits of many of the elderly charcters she encountered there, including these
nattily dressed gentlemen relaxing on a bench. What she found was a community dedicated to
enjoying life in the Florida sunshine, playing cards and dominoes and singing
songs in Yiddish. By the mid-1980s, this retirement playground was eclipsed by a culture of youth and fashion
that dominates it today.
Gay Block created the series
“Miami, South Beach” in the years 1982-85 and originally made them as
chromogenic prints. In more recent years, she has scanned these early negatives
and is making pigment prints.
See “About Love: Gay Block Photographs and Films, 1973-1022” (Radius, 2011), p. 89.
On View
Not on view
Gay Block
1988 (printed 2001)
Gay Block
1988 (printed 2001)
