Nashua, NH: Great Grandparents’ Portraits with Floral Wallpaper

Edition of 25 / 20 x 20 inches  (50.8 x 50.8 cm)
Edition of 15 / 30 x 30 inches (76.2 x 76.2 cm)
Signed and numbered
(Inventory #32692)

“I began as a portrait photographer and feel that I am still making portraits. Inhabited spaces tell you a lot about the people who live and work in them and are more revealing in some ways than anything a person might say to describe themselves. I certainly feel that this is true with photographic portraiture, which is frequently more about the photographer than it is about the sitter. A portrait of somebody’s home gets at who they are indirectly but often more accurately.” (Shellburne Thurber)

Shellburne Thurber’s “Nashua, NH: Great Grandparents’ Portraits with Floral Wallpaper, 1975” is presented now as an early example of Thurber’s lifelong interest in the energetic quality of lived space. Renowned for her long-term photo-based projects including, “Home” exhibited at the ICA, Boston in 1999, “Renovation” at the Boston Athenaeum in 2002, “9 Wellington” at Barbara Krakow Gallery in 2011, “Looking for Saint-Gaudens” at the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site in 2015 and 2019’s critically acclaimed exhibition, “Phantom Limb” at Krakow Witkin Gallery, Thurber has used the medium of photography to explore the relationship between constructed space and human presence.

Shellburne Thurber graduated from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Tufts University. Her work has been in numerous group and one person shows both in the USA and abroad. Her work is in several collections including the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Addison Gallery of American Art, the Worcester Art Museum, the ICA Boston and the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, to name a few. She has taught extensively throughout New England, most recently as visiting professor of photography at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. She has been the recipient of several awards including a fellowship from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and an Anonymous Was a Woman grant.