Gloria Vanderbilt 1954

Gordon Parks made this image of Gloria Vanderbilt sometime during his career using photography. The tones are soft and blurred, like something remembered, but it’s the painting in the background that really sings to me. Look at the way the blocks of dark paint sit on top of a lighter, textured surface. You can almost feel the grit of the pigment and see the strokes of the brush. To me, the painting becomes a metaphor for the way we build our identities – layer upon layer, adding and subtracting until we arrive at something we recognize as ourselves. There is one, solitary vertical stroke in the background, a line of paint just behind her neck, that feels incredibly vulnerable, even intimate. This photograph reminds me a little of Cy Twombly, but with a real person standing in front of the painting, making the art feel more real. The painting provides context for seeing Vanderbilt, or maybe Vanderbilt provides context for seeing the painting. With art, there isn’t any right way to see things, only different ways.