Triangulum, After Adelaide Ames

Date2017

MediumUnique cyanotype on paper

Dimensions84 × 176 in. (213.4 × 447 cm)

ClassificationsPhotography

Credit LineGift of the Jean R. Miller Trust

Object number2018.7.1

Label TextM33 is a spiral galaxy in the constellation Triangulum, which contains about 40 billion stars, and is located approximately 2,87 million light years from Earth. M33 was catalogued in the 1930s by Harvard Astronomer Harlow Shipley and his first graduate student Adelaide Ames. Based on a historic image from Harvard University Archives’ astrophotography collection, Triangulum, after Adelaide Ames is part of a body of work by Halloran, intended to highlight the often-overlooked contributions of women in astronomy. Cyanotype is a contact printing process dating to the mid nineteenth century, and commonly used to produce architectural or engineering blueprints. The rich blues are the result of exposing to sunlight an emulsion containing iron rather than the silver salts that traditionally created black and white prints.

“There is something about that blue that I find simultaneously represents both the darkness of the sky, and the vastness.” - Lia Halloran

Status

On view

Location