Untitled (portrait of woman wearing sweater) 1971

Curator: Isn’t it striking? This small, untitled portrait by John Howell, held at the Harvard Art Museums, presents a woman in a sweater, but in a photographic negative. Editor: Yes! The inversion gives it this ghostly, almost x-ray-like quality. I wonder what it communicates about how we view the female body? Curator: It's so intimate, yet detached. I feel like I'm seeing a secret, something normally hidden beneath the surface. Perhaps Howell wanted to reveal vulnerability? Editor: Or perhaps critique the very notion of photographic "truth"? The negative flips our expectations, unsettling the portrait's power dynamics. What does it mean to present an inverted image of femininity? Curator: Maybe it is both. Art often holds multiple truths, layered like emotions. Editor: Absolutely. It gives us a pause, a question. And maybe that is the truest portrait of all.