The Alligator's Approach

1988

Sally Mann

Artist, American, born 1951

In the lower center of this black and white, horizontal photograph, a light-skinned child sleeps sitting up against a folded-up lawn chair by the banks of a river. Small in scale against the landscape, the child’s long hair is wet and the eyes are closed, mouth hanging slightly open. A patterned towel is wrapped around the child’s shoulders and meets below the waist, showing a V of bare chest and belly. The towel drapes over the legs. The child sits near the edge of a wood planked deck or dock. The collapsed folding chair has three parts, and it pins a shiny black object, presumably a deflated inner tube, against the post of the railing. The railing extends across the left half of the composition and off that edge. A pair of sneakers and a watermelon sit next to a post supporting the railing halfway along its length. Beyond the deck to our left, the dirt riverbank has some patches of grass. The round canopy of a tree there fills the top left quadrant of the photograph. The river angles toward us from the back left, and the far bank is lined with scrubby brush and trees growing up and over steep, rocky outcroppings. An inflatable alligator and raft sit at the water’s edge on the bank closer to us, to our right of the sleeping child. An unfolded deck chair sits beyond the deck, farther along to our right. Bright sunlight blurs the view at the top center of the photograph and the scene gets darker at the edges and corners. The photograph goes in and out of focus, so the back of the folding chair behind the child and some of the leaves on the tree are in the sharpest focus. The child is slightly blurry as are the other objects and toys. The image becomes notably blurry at the edges.
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Artwork overview


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

David M. Malcolm, Bedford, NY; gift to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2004; acquired by NGA, 2015.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

2006

  • Sight/Insight: Photographs from the Permanent Collection, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, April 26, 2006 – October 29, 2006

Inscriptions

on verso, signed by artist, bottom right in graphite: The Alligator's Approach / © 1988 Sally Mann / 7/25; bottom left in graphite: ed 25 20x24 / 25 16x20 / 25 8x10; by unknown hand, top right corner in black pen: 5

Wikidata ID

Q64171313


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