CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 11/21/2014

Back in Stock: Nicholas Nixon: The Brown Sisters. Forty Years.

On the fortieth anniversary of Nicholas Nixon's seminal photography project, which was treated to a monumental feature by Susan Minot in the October 3 issue of the New York Times Magazine, MoMA presents a new edition of the book. Minot writes, "As we come to the last pictures, we feel the final inevitability that, as Nixon says, 'Everyone won't be here forever.' The implication hovers in the darkening of the palette and in the figures drawing together, huddling as if to stay afloat. To watch a person change over time can trick us into thinking we share an intimacy, and yet somehow we don't believe that these poses and expressions are the final reflection of the Brown sisters. The sisters allow us to observe them, but we are not allowed in. The reluctance shows particularly in the early pictures: the wary lowered brow, the pressed line of a mouth. Sometimes a body's stance or the angle of the jaw is downright grudging. These subjects are not after attention, a rare quality in this age when everyone is not only a photographer but often his own favorite subject. In this, Nixon has pulled off a paradox: The creation of photographs in which privacy is also the subject. The sisters' privacy has remained of utmost concern to the artist, and it shows in the work. Year after year, up to the last stunning shot with its triumphant shadowy mood, their faces and stances say, Yes, we will give you our image, but nothing else." Featured portrait—the newest, from 2013—is reproduced from The Brown Sisters: Forty Years.