1980

Specimen #18

American, born 1948

This hand-colored photogram exemplifies Lebe's integration of early photographic technologies into his modern practice. Photograms, popular during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, are created without a camera: objects are placed on top of a light-sensitive surface that is then exposed to light. Like the photogram, the delicate process of hand-coloring black-and-white photographs was prevalent during the nineteenth century, when color film technology was not yet available. Lebe regularly hand-colored images of traditional subject matter such as plant life, but also incorporated the technique into his progressive, sexually themed photographs.