The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 13, 2025

72 North Union Street, Rochester (Kitchen)

1956

Minor White

(American, 1908–1976)
America
gelatin silver print
Image: 23.8 x 17.7 cm (9 3/8 x 6 15/16 in.); Matted: 50.8 x 40.6 cm (20 x 16 in.)
Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund 1993.14
Reproduction courtesy The Minor White Archive, Princeton University. Copyright © 1982 by The Trustees of Princeton University. All rights reserved.
Location: Not on view

Description

As a photographer, educator, writer, curator, and editor of Aperture magazine, Minor White was one of the most influential forces in 20th-century photography. Early in his career, he championed a photographic style that emphasized personal feeling, ambiguity, and abstraction. While working in Rochester, New York, from 1953 to 1964, White lived in an apartment located above a store at 72 North Union Street (his darkroom was in the building's basement). The apartment had a spare, austere atmosphere that is reflected in this view of the kitchen, with the Japanese paper lantern and simple table setting. Each element in this carefully arranged composition has formal as well as metaphysical significance, such as order, routine, necessity, and the natural flow of life.
  • “1993 Annual Report.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 81, no. 6 (July 1994): 143–218. Mentioned: p. 160 www.jstor.org
    Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E Hinson. Catalogue of Photography. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996. Mentioned and Reproduced: P. 52-53, 387
  • CMA, November 20,1996 - February 2, 1997: "Legacy of Light: Master Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art," see Catalogue of Photography, pp. 52-53.
    Legacy of Light: Master Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 24, 1996-February 2, 1997).
    CMA, September 13 - November 27, 1994: "Recent Acquisitions: Prints, Drawings, Photographs," no exhibition catalogue.
  • {{cite web|title=72 North Union Street, Rochester (Kitchen)|url=false|author=Minor White|year=1956|access-date=13 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1993.14