Group of Swan Boats Central Park; Fine, clear day. Image 2. Austen, E. Alice. Group of Swan Boats Central Park; Fine, clear day; Friday, Oct. 16, 1891; Manhattan; New York; 1:50 p.m. Negative, Glass-plate Collection of Staten Island Historic Society

Images 1 & 2: These two photographs suggest the pleasures of what Alice Austen called “The Larky Life.” Her picture of a day at the beach features three men in playful repose on the sand. The figure in center smokes a pipe while placing his hand on the head of one of his companions. The man on the right was Peter Townsend Austen, the photographer’s uncle. The picture of swan boats on. Central Park Lake takes a more distant and elegant view of turn-of- the-century leisure on the sea.

Text by: Richard Meyer, Robert and Ruth Halperin Professor in Art History, teaches courses in twentieth-century American art, the history of photography, arts censorship and the first amendement, curatorial practice, and gender and sexuality studies.