Image: Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge
The program explores photographs through three connected lenses named on the event page: teen tragedy songs known as ‘death discs,’ hauntology, and postwar American nostalgia.
Brown will pair photographs by Joseph Janney Steinmetz and Terry Wood with the emotional atmosphere of 1950s and 1960s death discs, including ‘Leader of the Pack,’ ‘Teen Angel,’ and ‘Last Kiss.’ The talk will examine how photography can preserve and haunt cultural fantasies of innocence, romance, suburban adolescence, and loss. The event page highlights Terry Wood’s ‘Untitled (Cars on playing field, Tupelo, Mississippi),’ a 1956 gelatin silver print printed later.
The talk is offered in conjunction with the exhibition ‘The Way We Never Were: The American Professional Photographers Collection,’ which is on view from August 29, 2026, through May 9, 2027.
