New Bathroom / Woman Standing

Currently not on view

New Bathroom / Woman Standing

1979

Laurie Simmons (American, born 1949)

In the mid-1970s, Laurie Simmons purchased an assortment of 1950s dollhouse furniture from a toy store and brought it into her studio. After putting dolls and furniture together into make-believe scenes, she photographed her new miniature worlds. These scenes came from both Simmons’s imagination and her memories, though not necessarily from moments in her own life. In this picture, she tells the story of a typical 1960s housewife, which to her, a working female photographer in the 1970s, “seemed sweet and terrifying and abstract and whitewashed.” By using dolls and toy furniture instead of human actors, Simmons invites us into a childhood world of fantasy and play, where we might create our own stories about the imaginary scene she assembled.

Currently not on view

Object Details

Title:

New Bathroom / Woman Standing

Date:

1979

Artist:

Laurie Simmons (American, born 1949)

Medium:

Dye destruction print

Dimensions:

Image (sight): 34 × 49 7/16 inches (86.4 × 125.6 cm)

Classification:

Photographs

Credit Line:

Gift of Henry S. McNeil, Jr., 1988

Accession Number:

1988-79-2

Geography:

Made in United States, North and Central America

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Currently not on view