Image scanned from a transparency and color-corrected by Pat Cagney.

My Precious

Artist Burk Uzzle (American, b. 1938)

Date1988

MediumGelatin silver print

DimensionsOverall, Image: 23 × 18 in. (58.4 × 45.7 cm)
Overall, Frame: 37 1/8 × 31 in. (94.3 × 78.7 cm)

ClassificationsPhotography

Credit LineGift of the artist

Object number92.23.2

On View

Not on view

DescriptionThe following is from the 1992 exhibition catalogue A PROGRESS REPORT ON CIVILIZATION: BURK UZZLE: "As Uzzle began to look more closely at American culture, he created MY PRECIOUS. This is a powerful work concerned with values that many Americans hold dear. The Statue of Liberty, blue jeans, the home, family and a gun are all symbols of freedoms that we enjoy. The handgun is a prominent and quite threatening aspect of this composition. The gun, or the right to bear arms, is countered with the association of the weapon as an object for violence. This ominous element confilcts with the hope for a better world as minifested in the child. Here Uzzle is expressing his concern for the kind of world that we are fashioning and more importantly, what we will leave to the next generation."