George Washington "Grin" Bradley, 3rd Base, Sioux City Corn Huskers, from the Old Judge series (N172) for Old Judge Cigarettes 1889

Curator: Immediately, the sepia tone lends this photographic print a wonderfully antiquated feel, evoking a simpler time. Editor: Indeed. What we have here is a gelatin-silver print from 1889. Its full title is *George Washington "Grin" Bradley, 3rd Base, Sioux City Corn Huskers, from the Old Judge series (N172) for Old Judge Cigarettes.* Curator: "Grin" Bradley. He doesn’t look particularly grin-like. Rather serious, wouldn't you say? Perhaps "Determined" Bradley would be a more fitting moniker. He has this upward gaze fixed on the levitating ball above him. Editor: The pictorialist aesthetic sought to elevate photography to the realm of fine art. I find the composition to be deceptively simple: the soft-focus background draws all the focus to Bradley, really capturing a sense of stoicism. Curator: I'm struck by the context here. This wasn’t simply a portrait, was it? It’s an early example of sports advertising. Cigarette cards featuring athletes like Bradley helped cultivate a masculine identity tightly intertwined with both physical prowess and tobacco use. In this historical period, these men and the products associated with them, functioned as important pillars of aspirational man-making in a fast changing country. Editor: Absolutely. Semiotically, the baseball functions almost as a halo above his head. His uniform also signifies membership and aspiration. Curator: To me, it's bittersweet. Here’s Bradley, forever young, immortalized in this image. And yet, his image was essentially commodified, deployed to sell cigarettes. Editor: I see your point. I am mostly struck by its aesthetic presence as a compelling formal piece of photographic art of that time. Curator: Perhaps art is a synthesis of both—an object of beauty but also a carrier of historical and cultural weight. Editor: Precisely. Thanks for shining a light on both of those factors here.