Girl Holding Popsicle

Mark Cohen, Girl Holding Popsicle, 1972, printed 1983, gelatin silver print, sheet: 14 x 17 in. (35.5 x 43.2 cm.), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Dene and Mel Garbow, 1992.73.4, © 1972, Mark Cohen

Artwork Details

Title: Girl Holding Popsicle
Artist: Mark Cohen
Printer: Gary Schneider
Publisher: Janet Borden
Date: 1972, printed 1983
Location: Not on view
Dimensions: sheet: 14 x 17 in. (35.5 x 43.2 cm.)
Copyright: © 1972, Mark Cohen
Credit Line: Gift of Dene and Mel Garbow
Mediums Description: gelatin silver print
Classifications: Photography
Photoprint
Subjects: Figure female — child — torso
Object Number: 1992.73.4
Linked Open Data: https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/1992.73.4

Artwork Description

In Girl Holding Popsicle, a young girl twists shyly as she poses before a graffiti-inscribed brick wall. Mark Cohen took this photograph spontaneously as he passed through a back alley. Cohen does not hesitate to get assertively close to the strangers he meets in his hometown of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Many of his photographs were made without looking through a viewfinder, and so remained a mystery even to Cohen until they were developed.

A Democracy of Images: Photographs from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2013