Culture

New Kennedy Museum Exhibit Reveals “Hidden Mother”

Posted on: Thursday, January 14, 2016

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UPDATE: The exhibition opening reception and curator walk scheduled for Friday, Feb. 12 has been canceled. A special event for the exhibition will be announced soon.

The Kennedy Museum of Art will present Hidden Mother, a survey of 19th century child portraits known as “hidden mother” photographs, on view through May 1 in the second floor gallery.

The term “hidden mother” refers to the strategy of concealing a mother’s body as she supported her infant during the lengthy exposures required of early photographic technology. Emerging in recent years as popular collectibles, these images still remain largely unknown to photo-experts and the general public alike.

Nineteenth century portrait photographers turned to a number of different devices to stabilize the body for the long exposures required to make a portrait. To soothe and hold still the small, unruly body of a child, photographers often enlisted the mother hidden by studio props such as fabric, to support her offspring. In the final image, the mother appears as an uncanny presence, often swathed in fabric like a ghost.

Hidden Mother affords a comprehensive overview of this fascinating practice as it appears in a range of early photographic media while illuminating the powerful resonance that these obscure vintage images hold for timeless concerns of motherhood.

Curated by artist Laura Larson, professor of photography in Ohio University’s School of Art + Design, the exhibition grows out of her research for an artist’s book that enlists hidden mother photographs as a critical and lyrical frame for an account of the adoption of her daughter from Ethiopia. These melancholic and disturbing images speak to the fragile balance a mother must maintain in raising a child—cultivating both attachment and autonomy.

Open gallery hours are from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, and 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Thursday. Saturday and Sunday hours are 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. All events are free and open to the public.