Heirs Come to Pass, 3

Martina Lopez, Heirs Come to Pass, 3, 1991, silver dye bleach print made from digitally assisted montage, sheet, image and mount: 30 x 50 in. (76.2 x 127.0 cm.), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Consolidated Natural Gas Company Foundation, 1998.85, © 1998, Martina Lopez

Artwork Details

Title: Heirs Come to Pass, 3
Artist: Martina Lopez
Date: 1991
Location: Not on view
Dimensions: sheet, image and mount: 30 x 50 in. (76.2 x 127.0 cm.)
Copyright: © 1998, Martina Lopez
Credit Line: Gift of the Consolidated Natural Gas Company Foundation
Mediums Description: silver dye bleach print made from digitally assisted montage
Classifications: Photography
Photoprint
Subjects: Allegory — life — family
Figure group
Object Number: 1998.85
Linked Open Data: https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/1998.85

Artwork Description

Most families assemble photo albums—scrapbooks brimming with the faces of relatives dimly remembered, photographs of parents looking younger than we ever knew them, or images of ourselves as children—that create a loosely assembled history. Rather than drawing on her own family’s past, however, Martina Lopez collaged pictures of anonymous individuals she found in second-hand stores into digitally created tableaux that are at once familiar and haunting. Charged with implied narratives that we can never completely understand, her images resonate with our own experiences to remind us of the complicated patterns of our lives.

Close to Home: Photographers and their Families, 2011