Roberta Fay Henderson

Accession Number
2013/2.347

Title
Roberta Fay Henderson

Artist(s)
Danny Lyon

Artist Nationality
American (North American)

Object Creation Date
1967; printed 2010

Medium & Support
gelatin silver print on paper

Dimensions
14 in x 11 in (35.56 cm x 27.94 cm)

Credit Line
Gift of Thomas Wilson '79 and Jill Garling '80

Subject matter
After Knoxville, Tennessee, Lyon traveled to Galveston, Texas. He had not found the material he had hoped to find in Knoxville. In Galveston, he photographed people and places that were outside of mainstream America. He met seventeen year old Roberta Fay Henderson, a transgender woman who Lyon recorded speaking. She said of herself: "this wonderful life all started for me when I was six years old … my destiny was to be a girl ... some day I am planning to have a sex-change operation.” In this image, Roberta stands in front of a storefront, her arms behind her back. She wears patterned, high-waisted pants and a sleeveless shirt, looking into the camera lens.

Physical Description
Photograph of a woman leaning against a storefront. She wears patterned, high-waisted pants and a dark sleeveless shirt.

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
single-sitter portraits
storefronts
transgenderism
women (female humans)

& Author Notes

All Rights Reserved