Storage, Sacred Heart Ukranian Church, Johnson City, NY, 1986
Vintage type-c contact print,
8 × 10 inches
Estate stamp on verso
March 9, 2026
This photograph combines two of Bruce Wrighton's most favored subjencts: the magnetic power of devotional iconography and the down-at-the heels charm of blue collar bric-à-brac. The found assemblage of religious accoutrements delivers a sly jolt through its jostling of the sacred and the profane, as we see the Virgin Mary bumping up against a case of vodka and an upside-down Catholic priest pinned behind a bar stool.
Wrighton had a way of attentively photographing places that recalls how a portrait photographer might record the lines on a subject’s face. There is a sociological, even ethnographic feel to his work. But as a native resident of upstate New York, he did not photograph his surroundings as an outsider looking in; rather, he did so with the reflective and sympathetic eye of a kindhearted neighbor. His photographs have been described as an “open window,” an apt description for images that seem to offer the viewer a direct glimpse into the corner of the world he called home.
