Not on display

Self Evident

Photograph
1995 (photographed), 2013 (printed)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Ingrid Pollard Ingrid was born in Guyana in 1953. Her photographic work explores Britain’s hidden histories associated with Africa and the Caribbean and is often personal, reflecting her own experiences as a black, British, woman artist. She has received a number of awards and commissions and has had her work published in numerous magazines and books. Her work is held by Arts Council England and the National Trust as well as by the V&A, which holds her series Pastoral Interludes.

Self-Evident is a series of eight portraits of black men and women posed in English countryside scenes. Each of them holds an object associated, with the Afro-Carribean diaspora. These range from tropical flowers and a conch shell to objects with more stereotypical connotations such as fried chicken and watermelon. These carefully composed, square format images will build on the V&A’s existing holdings by Pollard, which are made with a different technique of hand-coloured gelatin silver prints combined with text.

Delve deeper

Discover more about this object
read Staying Power: Photographs of Black British Experience Working in partnership with Black Cultural Archives, we identified and acquired photographs taken by black photographers, or which document the lives of black people in Britain, taken between the 1950s – 90s.

Object details

Categories
Object type
Titles
  • Self Evident (assigned by artist)
  • The Big & Little Series (alternative title)
Materials and techniques
C-type print
Brief description
Photograph by Ingrid Pollard from the series Self Evident, C-type print, 1995, printed 2013
Physical description
A colour photograph of a woman holding two halves of a watermelon with the ocean in the background.
Dimensions
  • Image width: 456mm
  • Image height: 456mm
  • Paper width: 507mm
  • Paper height: 507mm
  • Frame height: 528mm
  • Frame width: 528mm
  • Frame depth: 45mm
Style
Credit line
Supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Object history
The V&A acquired this photograph as part of the Staying Power project. Staying Power is a five year partnership between the V&A and Black Cultural Archives. The project aims to explore black British experience from the 1950s to the 1990s through photographs acquired by the V&A and oral histories conducted by Black Cultural Archives.
Historical context
Originally conceived as a series of small colour lightboxes displayed alongside large scale black and white prints of children.
Subjects depicted
Summary
Ingrid Pollard Ingrid was born in Guyana in 1953. Her photographic work explores Britain’s hidden histories associated with Africa and the Caribbean and is often personal, reflecting her own experiences as a black, British, woman artist. She has received a number of awards and commissions and has had her work published in numerous magazines and books. Her work is held by Arts Council England and the National Trust as well as by the V&A, which holds her series Pastoral Interludes.

Self-Evident is a series of eight portraits of black men and women posed in English countryside scenes. Each of them holds an object associated, with the Afro-Carribean diaspora. These range from tropical flowers and a conch shell to objects with more stereotypical connotations such as fried chicken and watermelon. These carefully composed, square format images will build on the V&A’s existing holdings by Pollard, which are made with a different technique of hand-coloured gelatin silver prints combined with text.
Associated objects
Bibliographic reference
Ingrid Pollard Monograph (London, Autograph ABP: 1995), illustrated, pg. 16
Collection
Accession number
E.322-2013

About this object record

Explore the Collections contains over a million catalogue records, and over half a million images. It is a working database that includes information compiled over the life of the museum. Some of our records may contain offensive and discriminatory language, or reflect outdated ideas, practice and analysis. We are committed to addressing these issues, and to review and update our records accordingly.

You can write to us to suggest improvements to the record.

Suggest feedback

Record createdSeptember 21, 2013
Record URL
Download as: JSON