Tract House #24
Photograph
Tract House #24
1971
Gelatin silver print
11/12
Image: 5 13/16 × 8 13/16 in. (14.8 × 22.4 cm)
Mount: 10 15/16 × 10 15/16 in. (27.8 × 27.8 cm)
Purchase
1972.0015.0024
Inscriptions Signed and dated in ink on mount verso, BRC: Lewis Baltz 1971
Titled in ink on mount verso, BLC: Tract House # 24
Editioned in ink on mount verso, BC: 11/12
Titled in ink on mount verso, BLC: Tract House # 24
Editioned in ink on mount verso, BC: 11/12
TextLewis Baltz’s Tract Houses series, which spanned from 1969 to 1971 and included a total of twenty-five works, grew out of a childhood and adolescence witnessing the expansion of post–World War II suburban sprawl in southern California. The minimalism and geometric abstraction of Baltz’s photograph and the seriality of his overall series mimic the speedy construction and repetitious designs of the tract houses, and the eerie effect produced by the absence of human life among domestic dwellings serves as his commentary on the trend in suburban development. Baltz was featured in New Topographics, a landmark 1975 exhibition organized at George Eastman House that helped to validate the work of a generation of photographers who were looking at the contemporary landscape—in all of its decadence, homogeneity, and artifice—in a decidedly deadpan, matter-of-fact style.
Lisa Hostetler, Ph.D.
Curator in Charge, Department of Photography
Label for A History of Photography [Rotation 1]
May 9–September 28, 2014
Lisa Hostetler, Ph.D.
Curator in Charge, Department of Photography
Label for A History of Photography [Rotation 1]
May 9–September 28, 2014
