Untitled #49 from The Renaissance Society Photographic Portfolio
Art Talks! Docents in Dialogue
This work was part of Looking 101, a 2022 exhibition that supported Northwestern University’s undergraduate curriculum with an emphasis on first-year students. The following text was made available in the exhibition via cell phone camera (QR code) and booklet:
Early in her career, Chicago-based artist Laura Letinsky photographed couples in the intimacy of their own homes, creating visual narratives about love and relationships. By the late 1990s, she stopped photographing people and replaced them with objects—stained napkins, orange peels, half-eaten bits of candy—that hinted at human presence. Especially influenced by still life paintings from 17th-century Holland and 18th-century France, Letinsky crafts tabletop vignettes that suggest larger themes, as she explains: It's this idea that the narrative has already occurred; the meal has been eaten, the cornucopia has been consumed, something has been consummated, and this is what's left in the early morning light. Letinsky based this photograph on a 1768 oil painting by French artist Jean-Simeon Chardin, Basket of Peaches, with Walnuts, Knife and Glass of Wine.
