Soaped window, Boston, 1953

Description

Reed has described his interest in the calligraphic quality of these random scratches on a soaped window. Images such as this were at the center of much of the creative photography in Boston in the 1950s. Most often referred to as "subjective" in style, it was an approach to photography that paralleled Abstract Expressionism in the United States and l'art informel in Europe. Essentially, this approach combined the realism inherent in photography with the abstract and expressive goals of contemporary art. Often this effect was gained, as here, through the close-up examination of a subject that became abstract when stripped of its larger context.