Las Vegas, from "Master Prints Volume I"

Accession Number
1987/1.194.6

Title
Las Vegas, from "Master Prints Volume I"

Artist(s)
Elliott Erwitt

Object Creation Date
1957

Medium & Support
gelatin silver print on paper

Dimensions
20 1/16 in. x 23 15/16 in. ( 51 cm x 60.8 cm )

Credit Line
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Sheldon Sobel

Label copy
Postwar street photographers such as Elliott Erwitt often revel in suggesting subtle visual ironies betweee people and inanimate objects. His somber image of a young boy in Colorado, whose right eye is positioned behind the center of a shattered window, associate the fragility of the glass with the vulnerability of youth. In contrast, in Las Vegas, Erwitt photographs the interaction between a stoic woman and a lifelike, cowboy-shaped slot machine through a glass door labelled "PUSH." In doing so, Erwitt renders the kitschy artifice and disorienting mirrored spaces of a Las Vegas casino simultaneously fantastical and humorous.

Danny Lyon emphasizes the humanity of his subjects while at the same time immersing himself in their world. In his 1965 image of anmother and son hesitantly smiling through a car window, Lyon's reflection in the glass fuses the image of the photographer and those of his captive subjects.

Joel Meyerowitz takes a more aloof approach to documentary photography in his image of the Catskill Mountain resort where he worked as a waiter as an undergraduate, later returning as a newly minted professional photographer. Frames within frames are a key pictorial device for Meyerowitz, who here uses a three-paned glass wall to divide his poolside picture into a grid of symmetrical bays, interrupted by an unexpected lone foot rising above the central lounge chair to catch the sun.

Primary Object Classification
Photograph

Collection Area
Photography

Rights
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please visit http://umma.umich.edu/request-image for more information and to fill out the online Image Rights and Reproductions Request Form. Keywords
gambling
hats
modern and contemporary art
reflections

44 Related Resources

Apocalypses
(Part of 4 Learning Collections)
Art of interest to Judaic Studies
(Part of 3 Learning Collections)
Horror
(Part of 9 Learning Collections)
Monsters
(Part of 4 Learning Collections)
Narrative Photography
(Part of 2 Learning Collections)
Photobooks
(Part of: Artist Associations and Art Movements)
Photographic Portraiture 1949-1969
(Part of: Identity and Self-Understanding)
Robots and Other Automata
(Part of 9 Learning Collections)
Satire
(Part of 4 Learning Collections)
Zombies, Skeletons, and the Undead
(Part of 13 Learning Collections)
Tourism
(Part of 9 Learning Collections)
PAST - Academic Outreach Hits
(Part of: FFW Lower Level Study Cases     )
See Through: Windows and Mirrors in Twentieth-Century Photography
(Part of: Image Portfolios about Photography)
Jewish Photographers 
(Part of: Ethnicity and Race)
Elliott Erwitt
(Part of: Modern Jewish Photography F22 - Dash Moore)

& Author Notes

All Rights Reserved