Untitled
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The story
Drawn from research/photographs/photo-0235.md — the canonical research note. Provenance and primary-source documentation live there; this is the reader-friendly summary.
Subject and context
Per the MoMA Master Checklist (read this session), plate #244 is set in New Mexico and placed in Section 21 Dance. New Mexico is an unusual location for a Dance-section photograph in an exhibition otherwise dominated by USA, France, and South/Central American dance imagery in this section — the other Dance plates include Brazil (#233), France (#234), Scotland (#235 = Hans Wild, not Haas), Portugal (#236), Colombia (#237), Germany (#238, #241), Switzerland (#239), Mauritania (#240), Holland (#243), and Egypt (#245).
The 87 x 73 cm format matches the Egyptian dance plate immediately following (#245, Eliot Elisofon) — suggesting a paired display arrangement. Caption 18 (install by #236) quotes Kabir: “The hills and the sea and the earth dance • • •” (verbatim from the checklist, read this session) — a cosmic, universalizing caption that reframes local dancing as participation in a universal rhythmic pattern, entirely consistent with the exhibition’s humanist framing.
The estate biography records that “Haas moved to the United States in 1951 and soon after, began experimenting with Kodachrome color film. He went on to become the premier color photographer of the 1950s” (verbatim from src-haas-estate-biography, read this session). The dance theme and Southwest USA location (New Mexico) are consistent with Haas’s early-1950s American period, when he was producing color essays for LIFE.
Haas’s ICP biography (read this session) identifies “Magic Images of New York” as his landmark LIFE color essay, dated to 1951 (ICP) or 1953 (estate). The New Mexico plate likely predates or coincides with this New York color work — both fall within Haas’s early American period.
Reception / analysis
No plate-specific critical reception for checklist #244 has been documented in any source consulted this round.
The large-format Dance pairing (Haas/New Mexico at #244 and Elisofon/Egypt at #245) in Section 21 is one of the exhibition’s notable cross-cultural juxtapositions: American Southwest indigenous or folk dance adjacent to Egyptian dance, both at identical scale. This kind of formal and thematic rhyming across cultures is among the most discussed structural features of the exhibition in the critical literature; however, plate-specific commentary on #244 has not been found in sources consulted this round.
The estate biography records that “In 1962 a retrospective of his work was the first color photography exhibition held at New York’s Museum of Modern Art” (src-haas-estate-biography, read this session) — establishing Haas’s sustained institutional relationship with MoMA. His The Family of Man contribution at the large-format scale (87 x 73 cm) is consistent with Steichen’s recognition of Haas as a significant visual voice.
Perspective notes
- Curatorial (MoMA 1955): the 87 x 73 cm scale of this plate, matching the adjacent Egypt plate, suggests a deliberate formal pairing across cultures in Section 21 Dance. The New Mexico location adds a North American indigenous or southwestern American context to a section otherwise dominated by European and South American dance.
- Technical: plate #244 carries both Magnum and LIFE credits — one of the more fully credited plates in Haas’s FoM contribution, indicating a print previously published in LIFE and represented through Magnum agency.
- The MoMA checklist’s “Austrian” nationality credit for Haas (rather than “American”) reflects either the pre-naturalization status at time of submission or Steichen’s consistent use of birth-country nationality for photographers. Haas’s ICP page gives “American” post-naturalization; the checklist’s convention is birth-country.
Open questions
- Specific title, subject, and date of plate #244 — whether it is from a named LIFE assignment covering New Mexico.
- Whether the New Mexico plate depicts indigenous Pueblo/Navajo dance or another tradition.
- Whether MoMA’s permanent collection holds the print with a recorded object ID.
- Whether the print is among the Clervaux Castle holdings.
- Resolution of the ICP vs. estate date discrepancy for the landmark New York color essay (1951 vs. 1953), which would help narrow the New Mexico plate’s production window.
Catalog notes
Checklist #244, Section 21 Dance. Magnum (agency), LIFE (publication), Austrian, 87 x 73 cm. Third Haas plate in the checklist (first at #24 Lovers — photo-0021; second at #154 Work A — photo-0147). ‘Where Taken’ field reads ‘New Mexico’ — preserved verbatim per the checklist’s regional convention (most U.S. plates use ‘U.S.A.’ but the checklist occasionally records a state-level location). The checklist row carries BOTH an agency credit (Magnum) AND a publication credit (LIFE).
src-moma-exh-0569-master-checklist