Boy and Doll, Lower East Side 1966

Editor: This is Beuford Smith’s "Boy and Doll, Lower East Side" from 1966, a gelatin silver print. The scene is… unsettling. The discarded doll especially gives the image a rather dark mood. What stands out to you? Curator: I'm drawn to the juxtaposition, Editor. The boy, partially concealed, against the broken doll—symbols of innocence and vulnerability disrupted. What does a discarded doll mean in the cultural memory? Editor: A loss of innocence, maybe? Or childhood dreams being broken. Curator: Precisely. The doll itself is a potent image – a stand-in for the child, reflecting ideas around safety, care, and love. Yet here, it’s discarded, broken. Then we have the setting, the Lower East Side of the ‘60s. Poverty and neglect would have been major anxieties at the time. The doll could be seen as mirroring what's happening to some of the children in this area. Editor: I see your point. So, the artist is commenting on the vulnerability of childhood in a specific time and place? Curator: Perhaps. What else do you notice about how the boy is positioned? He's looking out from under the draped object. Is he hiding, or is he watching? What could it signify? Editor: He could be hiding from something, or maybe observing the world cautiously from behind that covering, a witness… almost like the viewer? Curator: Yes! Think of that visual parallel – observer observing observer. That boy in 1966 on the Lower East Side represents wider cultural concerns that resonate today: safety, inequality, visibility… Editor: I hadn’t considered how the placement and the setting really amplified those symbolic meanings. It definitely gives you a lot to think about. Curator: Indeed. The beauty of this work lies in how Smith uses deceptively simple imagery to invite such layered interpretations.