Small Deaths: Photographs (Southwestern & Mexican Photography Series The Wittliff Collections at Texas State University)

About this book

The first book-length work devoted to the photographs of Kate Breakey gathering 75 images from her "Small Deaths" series Winner Mitchell A. Wilder Award for Excellence in Publication and Media Design Texas Association of Museums 2002 Western Books Exhibition The Rounce & Coffin Club 2002 Small lives end every daythe unfledged bird fallen from its nest the unwary lizard caught by a catas unnoticed in dying as they were living. Deeply moved by these small deaths since her childhood in South Australia photographer-artist Kate Breakey has been photographing found animal remains since the mid-1990s creating stunning oversized hand-colored images thatparadoxicallyglow with life. This volume is the first book-length work devoted to the photographs of Kate Breakey. It gathers color images from her ongoing "Small Deaths" series. These birds flowers lizards and insects vividly express Breakeys desire to preserve each lost creatureto "freeze it in time suspend it in space immortalize it so that its beauty and its death are memorialized." In a brief afterword Breakey traces the origins of her art to a childhood spent among domestic and rescued animals on the Australian coast. In the introduction noted art critic A. D. Coleman links Breakeys work to the larger traditions of still-life painting and the postmortem photography of the nineteenth century.