File:Jacqueline Thurston RaditationTreatment 1976.jpg

Photograph by Jacqueline Thurston, Radiation Treatment (gelatin silver print, 1976). The image illustrates the first two decades in Jacqueline Thurston's career when she produced several black and white photographic series. that were identified as early examples of a movement toward "psychological documentary." This image is from the "Vital Signs" series, which was identified as part of a newly developing photographic genre—"psychological documentary"—which explored interior experience of both artist and subject. The series explored everyday hospital and clinic situations involving birth, death and survival, portraying patients and procedures with a quiet clarity, fragility and directness that writers described as honest and sometimes chilling, as in this work. Small in size, the images were striking for their staging, attention to gesture, ordered compositions and mystical lighting. This body of work and individual piece were publicly exhibited in prominent exhibitions and discussed by critics in major art journals and daily press publications.

Jacqueline Thurston official website. Copyright held by the artist.

Jacqueline Thurston

Entire artwork

Yes. The image will not affect the commercial value of the original work or limit the copyright holder's rights or ability to distribute the original due to its low resolution and the general workings of the art market, which values the actual work of art. Because of the low resolution, illegal copies could not be made.

The image has contextual significance in that it serves an informational and educational purpose as the primary means of illustrating the artwork created in the first two decades in Jacqueline Thurston's career in the 1970s and 1980s when she focused on black and white photographic series that were identified as early examples of a movement toward "psychological documentary." Her photography of this era was recognized for its ambiguity, sense of stillness and silence, and nuanced use of tone, texture and light to convey mood. This body of work most notably included the "Nocturnal Suite" of outdoor, nighttime urban scenes; the "Vital Signs" which explored hospital and clinic situations involving birth, death and survival; and the "Dioramas" series of images4er taken at major U.S. natural history museums, which contemplated the polemics of display and representation and beliefs about life, death and immortality. Because the article is about an artist and her work, the omission of the image would significantly limit a reader's understanding and ability to understand this key period and specific medium in her work, which brought Thurston initial recognition through exhibitions, coverage by major critics and publications and museum acquisitions. Thurston's work of this type and this specific work and series are discussed in the article and by critics cited in the article.

There is no free equivalent of this or any other of this series by Jacqueline Thurston, nor could one be created to serve this purpose, so the image cannot be replaced by a free image.

The image use is minimal in that the whole image must be used to properly represent the art—a partial usage would misrepresent it. Further, because the artist produced very distinct bodies of work in terms of medium, subject and aesthetic, this image is required to accurately convey a significant and highly relevant period of her career.