Salome Bey

Sandra Brewster

born 1973

Salome Bey, 2021

Material/technique: gel transfer; wove paper

Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 102.5 x 88.2 cm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 106.7 x 90.2 cm
Frame Dimensions (Height x Width x Depth): 45.00 x 38.50 x 2.25 in
Weight (Weight): 19 lbs

Credit line: Museum purchase: Helen Foresman Spencer Art Acquisition Fund

Accession number: 2024.0130

On display: Perkins Central Court

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Bold Women

This work portrays Salome Bey (1930–2020), the award-winning jazz and blues singer-songwriter and playwright. The unusual portrait functions as a kind of elegy to influential figures of the Caribbean diaspora whose impact is sometimes overlooked. No two prints of the photograph are the same, and each one carries the imperfections of their manual transfer process. Sandra Brewster overlaps the unfixed gel-transfer medium with a blurred subject in motion, a ground-breaking method that denies the camera’s traditional role and the fixity of the colonial gaze.