Stolen Moments
Artist
Darryl Curran
(American, 1935)
Date1975
MediumVan Dyke print
DimensionsImage: 15 × 22 in. (38.1 × 55.9 cm)
Mat: 22 × 28 in. (55.9 × 71.1 cm)
Mat: 22 × 28 in. (55.9 × 71.1 cm)
ClassificationsPhotograph
Credit LineGift of Darryl Curran in memory of Carole Briant, 2020
Object number2021.1.5
DescriptionHorizontal composition in tones of brown featuring several pictures of photographs. At right is the largest, a horizontal view of an interior with a table set with several drinking glasses at which a man and a woman are seated. At the far side of the table is a man with shoulder-length curly hair and aviator glasses holding a Polaroid camera to his face, aimed at the woman across from him seen in profile. A hand extends into the picture near her head, holding an SX-70 photograph in the process of development. In a separate image at bottom left, a hand extend into the picture holding a horizontal snapshot of the interior of a home with two people at center.eMuseum Notes
The title “Stolen Moments” probably refers to the artist’s unexpected layover in Buffalo, New York, after a winter storm prevented his landing in Chicago. He took advantage of the inconvenience to meet up with photographer Les Krims, who invited him home for a casual gathering. A simple set-up becomes a more layered composition about photography, as Curran photographs a print of a picture of Krims taking a picture of the woman across from him, while a hand holding a developing Polaroid photograph rises from the bottom of the frame. To the left is another hand, holding up a snapshot of a couple in a dining room that faintly echoes Krims’s table setting. Maybe “stolen moment” refers to the act of photography itself.
On View
Not on view
