J. Morgan Puett | Home | The Ladies' Field Club of York
Arabella Bell, Conchology Henrietta Swanson, Ornithology Mrs. E. N. Todter, Lepidoptery Mr. R. Cornelius Boggit, Porter Mrs. Herbert Fowler, Anthropology Miss Mary Buckmore, Paleontology Miss Amelia West, Botany		The Ladies' Field Club of York The National Railway Museum, York, England 1999 Curator; Andrew Cross. (catalog) The Ladies Field Club of York is an imaginary group of women amateur natural scientists from the 19th century who, in pursuit of their studies, made field trips in a specially designated railway carriage. Part installation, part photographic fiction, The Ladies’ Field Club of York is a collaboration with Mark Dion and J. Morgan Puett and was installed in The National Railway Museum, York. Central to the work are eight photographic portraits of the seven members of the field club and their trusted porter. These portraits have been made using the exact styling conventions and techniques in late Victorian studio portraiture. The models employed for the eight portraits are contemporary art curators currently working in Britain. Together with a tableau recreating a mobile laboratory the portraits were installed in a teak baggage car built by the Great Northern Railway in the 1890s.