Alex A. Acolatse1900-1920 (taken) 2015 (print)
Group portrait [Togo]
Inkjet print, from glass negative
Anonymous gift, in honor of Agamah Ayao, to the Visual Resource Archive, Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, Accession Number: N.A.2015.7
Included in the "In and Out of the Studio: Photographic Portraits from West Africa" exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (31 August 2015-3 January 2016).
Curatorial description (Accessed 7 October 2015)
This photograph, printed for the exhibition from the original glass negative also exhibited, exemplifies Acolatse's activity as a portrait photographer of the upper class. Here, he captures a group of men posing outdoors in front of a large painted backdrop of an aristocratic interior. While Acolatse would have most likely cropped the final print, his wide framing reveals the wall of a building and the sand of the street of Lomé, and betrays the tension between reality and photographic fiction.
LL/61689
