Smithsonian American Art Museum Photography Collection Feature

Clarence John Laughlin was a self-taught photographer, born today in 1905 in Louisiana.

Laughlin used his camera to create and capture the mystical aura of his native New Orleans in surrealistic compositions that imaginatively incorporated the area's distinctive landscape and architecture.

In this photograph titled The Mirror of Long Ago, "the painted image of a beautiful woman floats inexplicably in the reflection of a French Rococo-style room, suggesting the spirit of an age that expired long before photography. By printing two negatives together, Laughlin was able to enhance what he called the 'tragic and poetic beauty' of an abandoned antebellum plantation in Southern Louisiana."

Source: Andy Grundberg. Jay Tobler, ed. The American Art Book (London: Phaidon, 1999).

Pictured: Clarence John Laughlin, 1905–85, The Mirror of Long Ago, about 1946, gelatin silver print, 10 x 8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum acquisition.