Four to Five shows a grid of sixteen photographs of Snow’s Walking Woman in urban spaces, including on the street and in a subway station. This work is part of Snow’s famous Walking Woman series, 1961-67, which includes hundreds of individual works based on a stylized cutout of a walking woman. Lacking feet and hands, the figure may bring to mind the famous ancient Greek sculpture Venus de Milo, 130-100 BCE. Nevertheless, in this work the Walking Woman is firmly situated in the contemporary world of the early 1960s. Snow was interested in placing this two-dimensional form into three-dimensional space outside of the gallery, and then returning it to two-dimensionality through photography.
Early Snow: Michael Snow 1947-1962
-
Michael Snow, Four to Five, 1962, printed 1991
16 gelatin silver prints, 68 x 83.3 cm, Collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, purchased with funds donated by AGO Members, 1991 (91/53). © Michael Snow, Photo © Art Gallery of Ontario.