City Light Box Study 1943

Curator: I find Nathan Lerner’s gelatin-silver print, “City Light Box Study,” made in 1943, to be unexpectedly hopeful, don't you think? Editor: It feels rather somber at first glance—all those grays! It makes me imagine endless days of laundry. Curator: Right, and thinking about it, Lerner was deeply involved with the New Bauhaus. He brought that interest in form and structure to his commercial photography. In this cityscape, it’s intriguing how ordinary clotheslines become architectural lines. Editor: Exactly. The way the laundry dances on the lines is just so lyrical and evocative. Like transient sculptures set against the rather grim, sturdy permanence of brick. Do you suppose he saw the beauty in everyday routines or was commenting on it? Curator: Probably both. The sharp contrast emphasizes the texture of everything—stone, fabric, the metal bars. These stark contrasts elevate what we might see as a purely utilitarian scene into high art. Lerner’s manipulation of the medium transformed something so commonplace into something enduring. The work elevates daily acts into a visually interesting art. Editor: It really does, and while doing that, it freezes a specific, difficult time when clean laundry was a real victory! All that starch and struggle implied within that dangling wash—the work and resources it must have cost! Curator: Thinking about the broader implications of the black-and-white format, you can almost smell the lye soap and imagine the labor involved in maintaining these cloths in this condition. Editor: Which, I imagine, during the War years, meant sacrifice in maintaining dignity. It reframes domestic labor as work but also possibly resistance? And yet, looking at it, my most vivid impression is the quiet stillness amidst what would surely have been a time of anxiety. Curator: Ultimately, Lerner prompts us to reassess beauty in the quotidian, pushing us to really see the details of everyday life. Editor: Absolutely. This image resonates in surprising ways, hinting at tales within what appears, initially, to be simply gray shades on hanging fabric.