Untitled (couple standing in front of chalkboard) 1954 - 1955

Curator: Here we have Harry Annas’s "Untitled (couple standing in front of chalkboard)", a silver gelatin print residing here at the Harvard Art Museums. Editor: This feels like a high school yearbook photo turned surreal. The stark monochrome, the inverted tones... it's unsettling yet somehow charming. Curator: The chalkboard diagrams a football play, which places the couple within the context of American education and leisure, key societal pillars. Editor: And it speaks to the labor involved in capturing such an image. The silver gelatin process itself, the photographer's role, the subject’s posed stance. Curator: Absolutely. The image hints at postwar gender roles, the man in a casual shirt, the woman in a dress with a matching bag—a constructed image of domesticity. Editor: But there's also a strange flatness to it, almost like a stage set. Are we looking at a genuine moment, or a performance of one? Curator: Good question. It reflects the anxieties of that era, perhaps, as well as its constructed ideals. Editor: It's a potent image that makes you question the materials used in crafting that ideal. Curator: A poignant reminder of photography's power to shape, and reflect, cultural narratives. Editor: Indeed. Makes you reconsider what is captured and what is carefully staged.