On Press with Pompeii Archive

The Gallery was recently on press with Pompeii Archive, the latest publication by American photographer William Wylie. The ancient city of Pompeii, destroyed by lava and falling ash from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79, has been capturing the public’s imagination since it was first excavated in the mid-eighteenth century. Challenging the notion of Pompeii as a city frozen in time, Wylie’s photographs instead reanimate the ancient site. Wylie made the photographs while serving as the Gallery’s Happy and Bob Doran Artist in Residence. Over three successive trips to Italy, he compiled a remarkable body of images that document Pompeii’s buildings, wall paintings, and terracotta reliefs while also drawing attention to the signs of an active excavation site, from plaster casts in glass cases to ceramic fragments in storage facilities that are not accessible to the public. As Wylie writes in the publication, “Exposing aspects of the site not easily seen, my photographs represent not a lost past but the accumulated traces left by the centuries since Pompeii was unearthed—ruining rather than ruin, the passage of time itself.” In a nod to the colors of Pompeian frescoes, the publication is beautifully bound in a clay-red fabric, which complements the warm gray tones of the photographs. The publication is available online and in the Bookstore, and a selection of Wylie’s photographs can be seen this spring in the related exhibition, Pompeii: Photographs and Fragments.

Tiffany Sprague

Director of Publications and Editorial Services

and Jennifer Lu

Editorial and Production Assistant

Learn More about Pompeii Archive