F. Holland DayAmerican, 1864–1933Menelek
Can I see it?
Not on view at present
Where is “Menelek” now? Collection: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. Not on view at present. Checked September 29, 2026.
Chicago, United States
It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the work
F. Holland Day played a key role in the international Pictorialist movement that gained strength around 1900. Pictorialists believed that photography could be a vehicle for personal expression. They employed soft focus, borrowed compositions from paintings, and presented their work as fine art—for example, surrounding the image with one or more layers of tinted paper. Day, a flamboyant presence, dressed his frequent model J. Alexandre Skeete in elaborate costumes for a series of photographs evoking imaginary African royalty: the title of this work references the 10th-century BC Ethiopian king Menelek and Ethiopia’s 1896 independence from Italy under Menelek II. This series furthered a long, con-troversial tradition of white artists exoticizing, and also eroticizing, people of color as “other.”
Read on
For more on the Alfred Stieglitz collection at the Art Institute, along with in-depth object information, please visit the website: The Alfred Stieglitz Collection.
Art Institute of ChicagoCC BY 4.0
Details
- Accession number
- 1949.859
In the catalog
Sources
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Image: Art Institute of Chicago — CC0
