Untitled (family sitting on couch) c. 1950

Editor: This is an untitled photograph, "family sitting on couch," by Lucian and Mary Brown. It's a black and white print, quite small. What strikes me is the almost ghostly quality, which makes me wonder: what can you tell me about it? Curator: Looking at the photograph’s materiality—its production as a photographic negative—opens interesting questions. The family’s consumption of images, both in the portraits on the wall and the photograph they examine, reveals a fascination with representation. How does the means of producing and circulating images influence the family's identity? Editor: That’s interesting, it makes me think about how we consume images today. Curator: Yes, and how the Browns, through photography, participated in shaping and preserving their domestic narrative.