Gravure on view: Electric Chair (New York, 1939)

The scene is as gloomy as it is real. The image captures the precise moment of the execution of a man in the electric chair in New York, in 1939. In the photograph, all its elements add to the drama, beginning with the lighting that is the product of the discharge and that generates a series of reflections and shadows that turn viewers into cartoon characters. On the small stage, the scene is dominated by three guards, the sentenced man and a priest, who with their exemplary passivity accentuate the tension during the deadly event. On the far right, the presence of the priest intensifies the terror.
A capricious reflection in his glasses turns him into a demonic being, quite the opposite of the image of peace that a man of God should supposedly impose.
Being a public execution, the room is packed with spectators whose backs create a small black wave crowned with a few hat-covered heads. Almost all those present are men, only the presence of a woman is suggested whose dress with flares appears intermittently in the first plane of the image. Due to her position, the woman is the character that provokes the most empathy, surely she was a few meters from the photographer. The distance he has from the scene is not very different from that of the camera. In a way, what she saw that day is what we can see now through this photograph.

Specifications / Credits

Tufic Yazbek (b.1917-1979, Mexico) was one-third of the commercial photographic studio, Studio Yazbek, that he operated with his nephew and brother between the 1930s and the 1970s. Yazbek came to specialize in commercial photography after training with Alfredo, his elder brother, and shot campaigns for Tecate, Smirnoff, Disneyland, Coca-Cola, and the like.