Untitled (man in suit seated at desk in ornate room) 1935

Paul Gittings created this untitled photograph of a man in a suit seated at a desk in an ornate room, now held in the Harvard Art Museums. The composition of this photograph is striking. The photograph is an inverted negative, so the man appears almost spectral in his light suit, contrasting with the dark, elaborate room. The desk dominates the foreground, its ornate details rendered almost abstract by the photographic process. Gittings positions the man slightly off-center, drawing our eye across the desk to a large floral arrangement by the window. The photograph’s composition and inverted tones disrupt conventional portraiture. The interplay of light and shadow flattens the image, emphasizing form over realistic representation. Gittings uses the photographic medium to destabilize our perception, transforming a traditional subject into an exercise in visual abstraction. In doing so, Gittings uses photography not just as documentation, but also as a means of challenging traditional notions of representation.