Paper Dolls

Date2017

MediumInk on architectural film

Dimensions40 × 132 in. (101.6 × 335.3 cm)

ClassificationsPainting

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Escalette Endowment

Object number2018.9.1

Label TextFrom 1885 to 1927, the Harvard College Observatory employed a group of women “computers” who made major contributions to astronomy. They discovered galaxies and nebulae; they devised ways to measure distance in space; they created a system for classifying stars on which our current system is based; they published their discoveries in scientific journals, under their own names. They were photographed, holding hands like a string of paper-dolls, outside the Observatory Director’s residence in 1918. It was this historic image that Lia Halloran used as the starting point for the two Paper Dolls works in this gallery, which pay tribute to the work of women scientists.
These two works form a pair composed of an original drawing in ink on drafting film, and a cyanotype print/painted negative. 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.

Status

On view

Location