Woman with Meat Packer's Gloves, 1937
Three-color carbro print
39.7 x 24.8 cm (15-5/8 x 9-3/4 in.)
87.XM.66.2

"The response to beauty arises from a need in the human soul," wrote Outer- bridge. "The choice of subject, material, and especially colors, used by an artist may reveal his underlying personality." The human figure is one of the most persistent themes in the history of photography, with the body frequently treated as a dictionary of formal relationships that bring with them an immediate emo- tional reaction in each viewer. Simply by choosing the female figure, Outerbridge tells us something of his personality; by addinig color he reveals more; and by adding the mask and the shocking element of the spiked gloves, he introduces a charged psychological dimension. Outerbridge was a pioneer in the use of color photographs for mass-media commercial advertising, and he carefully studied the emotional associations of colors. The color scheme here consists of the blue back- ground, a yellowish flesh tone, and the brown of the gloves. About yellow he wrote: "From one point ofview it suggests cheerfulness and sunlight and from another [it] seems to have a tie up with sickness and cowardice." Outerbridge believed that photographs should be composed, not "taken," and he reminds us that every element of his pictures, from the color to the composition, bears significance.

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