The Heart of the Storm (Primary Title)
Anne W. Brigman, American, 1869 - 1950 (Photographer)
In The Heart of the Storm, an angel-like figure raises her right hand in a mudra, or blessing gesture, with the adjacent woman nestled against her. Both figures repeat the elongation and dark tones of the gnarled, windblown trees flanking them—suggesting a merging of civilized and natural realms. Anne Brigman had trained as a painter, and in this case, she scratched and drew on the negative, creating, among other forms, the halo above the woman at left. Early in her career, Brigman exhibited at Alfred Stieglitz’s famed Photo-Secession (291) gallery, her work appealing to Stieglitz for its conflation of nature and the female body.
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