Toledo Museum of Art Acquires 19th Century Photo Series Hailed as Among the Most Important Images Ever

F. Holland Day’s ‘The Seven Words’ (1898) | Image via the Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio

The Toledo Museum of Art has acquired a landmark 19th century photograph that the museum says ranks among the most important photographic works in history, despite being largely unknown to the public.

According to a report by The Art Newspaper, the museum which is located in Toledo, Ohio, has purchased The Seven Words (1898) by American photographer F. Holland Day (1864-1933).

Historians regard Day as an early American pioneer who among the first to champion photography as a fine art alongside painting and sculpture. But his work gradually faded from public memory, in part because his contemporary and rival Alfred Stieglitz became far more influential.

The Most Important Photograph People Don’t Know About

Between 1896 and 1898, Day turned to Christian imagery in his photography, casting himself as Jesus in a series of elaborate self-portraits. Day altered his appearance for the role of Jesus, growing out his hair and fasting to change his physical form.

With help from neighbors in Massachusetts, he staged an outdoor recreation of the Crucifixion, which became The Seven Last Words. The work consists of seven close-up platinum prints showing Day as Christ in his final moments on the cross. He meticulously constructed each scene with costumes and props, even creating a custom mirror attachment for his camera so he could see and adjust his appearance as he photographed himself.

The Seven Words debuted at the first Philadelphia Photographic Salon in 1898 at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where it quickly sparked debate over photography’s use for spiritual subjects.

“This is the most important photograph that people don’t know about,” Adam M. Levine, the Toledo Museum of Art director, tells The Art Newspaper. “We can situate it with performance art, and it’s a work that anticipates what will happen with cinema.”

The Seven Last Words is the most expensive work of photography that the Toledo Museum of Art has ever purchased and is also the first by Day to enter the institution’s collection.

The ‘Original Exploratory Nature’ of Photography

The Seven Words will go on view next year, when the Toledo Museum of Art reopens after a major reinstallation of its permanent collection. The Ohio museum’s The Seven Words is one of three known originals. The others are at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Erin Corrales-Diaz, the Toledo Museum of Art’s curator of American art, first encountered Day’s work in graduate school and later realized the museum had very little early photography in its collection.

“Today, we’re so inundated with photography that we forget its original exploratory nature. If sculpture and painting could depict religious subjects, why not photography?” Corrales-Diaz tells The Art Newspaper. “Day made 250 plate studies for The Seven Words, only a dozen of which were successful. It’s one of the most ambitious, radical and beautiful projects.”

“When you see it for the first time, you can’t believe it’s a photograph. You think it’s charcoal with those deep blacks,” Levine says. “It’s exquisite as a work of both photography and performance.”

Image creditsHeader photo via Toledo Museum of Art.