In Search of Myself

Arthur Siegel was central to the photographic scene of mid-20th-century Chicago and had a lengthy engagement with the city’s innovative Institute of Design, first as a student and later as a professor. Combining avant-garde experimentalism with documentary practice, Siegel exhibited his photographs in fine-art venues while maintaining a career in commercial photography and photojournalism. In 1951, shortly after undergoing Freudian analysis, he began the series In Search of Myself, which depicted shoppers on State Street in an effort to explore the complex relationship between identity and consumerism. Employing multiple exposures and taking advantage of the repeated reflections in shop windows, Siegel blended shoppers, commodities, and the streets in a dizzying urban bustle.