The Brown Sisters, Concord, Massachusetts 1992

Editor: This is Nicholas Nixon’s "The Brown Sisters, Concord, Massachusetts," from 1992. It's a gelatin silver print, and one of many in an ongoing series of portraits of the same four sisters. They look… vulnerable, somehow. What strikes you about it? Curator: What immediately comes to mind is the power of repetition. Nixon photographed the Brown sisters every year since 1975. Consider how museums contribute to art's cultural significance, in this case enabling Nixon to show his extended series. Each photo stands alone, but gains tremendous weight within the larger context of time and the passage of life stages. Editor: That makes sense. It's like the image gains power, knowing the photographer returned to them, again and again. Curator: Exactly. And how do the conventions of portraiture, historically used to signify status or beauty, get complicated when applied repeatedly to the same, aging subjects? What’s Nixon trying to say by de-glamorizing it? Editor: That's a good point! The lack of glamour makes them very relatable and real. Maybe he is suggesting that all of us have common milestones. Curator: Perhaps. Or it's a study about representation. About family, mortality, and the gaze. Consider also the institutional framing—the act of placing these private moments within the public space of a museum… Editor: I guess it asks questions about voyeurism as well? Thank you, I hadn't considered all these wider implications of context and repetition! Curator: Precisely. The image prompts many avenues for exploration. Art history is, in essence, storytelling—using an image to narrate cultural understanding and visual change.