1973

Untitled

Barbara Blondeau

American, 1938 - 1974

Blondeau was a pioneering Philadelphia photographer whose career was cut short by a years-long battle with cancer. Little is known about this enigmatic self-portrait, taken during a hospital stay shortly before her death.

The folded New York Times splayed across Blondeau’s lap shows part of a caricature of embattled vice president Spiro Agnew published just days before his resignation. Is this gnarled, abstracted rendering of the human form, laid atop Blondeau’s failing body, a meditation on her own mortality? Or is it merely a humorous jab at the fledgling Nixon administration? The artist leaves us many clues, but no definitive answers.