[Crime Scene Album]

Dr. Edward E. Smith|Unknown

ca. 1940 · Gelatin silver prints · Photographs

This album of forty postmortem photographs of murder victims was compiled in about 1940 by Dr. Edward E. Smith, the coroner for Franklin County, Ohio. Gruesome and unsettling, yet at times strangely compelling, the album is an anthology of stories with unhappy endings. This photograph of a murdered couple on the floor of their home uncannily resembles a classic noir film still, providing a real-world equivalent of the gritty, high-key black-and-white aesthetic that would come to define that cinematic genre.

Artist

Dr. Edward E. Smith|Unknown

Date

ca. 1940

Medium

Gelatin silver prints

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Twentieth-Century Photography Fund, 2014