More Avant-Garde

Photographer's stamp with date in ink and pencil and measurements in pencil on print verso.
Illustrated: Bouqueret, Christian. Pierre Bourcher: Photomonteur. Marvel, 2003, p. 70, pl. 19.

"Photographie de Laure Albin-Guillot/Expo Art Deco, 1925/ Paravent Chinois fait sur métal/Pierre Fresson avait fait un paravent sur le bateau 'Normandie'" in pencil on print verso. ["Photograph by Laurae Albin-Guillot/Expo Art Deco, 1925/Chinese screen made on metal/Pierre Fresson had made a screen on the boat "Normandie""]

Illustrated: Micrographie Décorative. Paris: Draeger Frères, 1931. Variant of Plate VII [blue not brown]. Bouqueret, Christian. Laure Albin Guillot ou La volonté d'art. Marval, 1996, p. 68.

Photographer's signature "R UBAC", title, date and "1er Etat collage solarisation" in photographer's hand with daughter's authentication and illustration reference and measurements in another hand in pencil on print verso.
Illustrated: Bouqueret, Christian. Raoul Ubac: Photographie. Editions Léo Scheer, 2000, cat. 79, p. 89 and p. 241. Paris Capitale Photographique 1920-1040, Coll. Christian Bouqueret. Jeau de Paume/Éditions de La Martinière, 2009, p. 161.

Signed and credited "Photo Jean Moral" by photographer, with date, illustration reference and numeric notations in pencil on print verso.
Illustrated: Paris magazine, May 1935 [with the titled "reflets" (reflections)]. Bouqueret, Christian. Jean Moral: L'Oeil Capteur. Paris: Marval, 1999, p. 64, pl. 49. Paris Magazine, 1935.
Exhibited: Musée de Grenoble, 1999-2000; Musée Nicéphore Niepce, Chalon sur Saône, 2001; Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne, 2001.
This print or possibly another print exhibited: Premier Salon international du nu photographique, Paris 1933, No. 259 and titled "reflets".

On original artist's mount. Signed in ink on print recto with Berlin studio ink stamp on mount verso.
Illustrated: Helmar Lerski, Lichtbildner: Fotografien und Filme, 1910-1947. Essen, Museum Folkwang, 1982. p. 57.

During this rich period of innovation and artistic expression, Helmar Lerski (1871-1956) photographed much of the intelligentsia of Berlin, including this young bookseller, George Wittenborn, who later immigrated to New York. Wittenborn Books was also a significant publisher and presence in the art world. When I first had this print, my former boss, Virginia Zabriskie, saw it my booth at Paris Photo in 2007 and told me it was a photograph of George Wittenborn. Though the photograph was made decades before she ever met him, Virginia said that his good looks were impossible to forget.

Signed in pencil on print recto within image.
Illustrated: Ute Eskildsen, ed., Helmar Lerski: Metamorphosis through Light. Luca Verlag, 1982, p. 49.

From 1932-1947, Lerski lived in Palestine and photographed Jews and Arabs and made films. In 1936, over a three-month period, he made 175 photographs of one individual. This project, titled Metamorphosis through Light, can be seen as a culmination of his decades long interest in portraiture. Lerski often made multiple photographs of his sitters where each looked strikingly different from the other. He used tight compositions with strong light and shadow utilizing reflectors sheets to direct light, sometimes from multiples directions. Metamorphosis through Light is almost surreal in that it shows photographs of the same person looking like so many different people and depicts the complexity of the human character.

Photographer's stamp on print verso.

Mounted. Signed in ink on mount recto lower left corner. "Prisons de velours" (Velvet Prisons) and "Roubaud" in colored pencil on mount recto.
Design for book cover: Roubaud, Louis. La prison de velours. Paris: Gallimard, 1934.
Illustrated: Roger Parry: Photographies, dessins, mises en pages. Paris: Gallimard/Jeu de Paume, 2007 p. 104.

Photographer's stamp on print verso.

Signed and dated with title in a different hand in pencil on print verso.
Illustrated: Bouqueret, Christian. Daniel Masclet: Photographe Critique Théoricien. Marvel, 2001, p. 69, pl. 54.

These photographs by Masclet are believed to be of the French actress, playwright, and novelist, Odette Joyeaux, made very early in her career, most likely while she was still studying dance at the Paris Opera Ballet. It is remarkable how she looks more alive with her eyes closed. With her eyes open she resembles a mannequin, and the photograph becomes surreal. The two together allude to the Surrealists’ dedication to unleashing the expression of the subconscious, for them, a state of being beyond merely awake or asleep.

Mounted. Signed in pencil on mount recto.
Illustrated: Bouqueret, Christian. Daniel Masclet: Photographe Critique Theoricien. Paris: Marval, 2001, p. 69, pl. 54 (variant).

These photographs by Masclet are believed to be of the French actress, playwright, and novelist, Odette Joyeaux, made very early in her career, most likely while she was still studying dance at the Paris Opera Ballet. It is remarkable how she looks more alive with her eyes closed. With her eyes open she resembles a mannequin, and the photograph becomes surreal. The two together allude to the Surrealists’ dedication to unleashing the expression of the subconscious, for them, a state of being beyond merely awake or asleep.

Mounted; signed, titled "Photograph" and dated in pencil on mount verso.

Mounted; signed, titled "Photograph" and dated in pencil on mount verso.

Frederick Sommer was drawn to Surrealism. However, like other artists of the time, he wasn’t interested in their devotion to unleashing the subconscious to explore the metaphysical. Sommer’s Prince Albert utilizes a found object, a tin of Prince Albert tobacco, on which he has placed several objects including the leg of a doll or toy. The image of Prince Albert, soon to be King Edward VII (1901-1910) of the United Kingdom, namesake of the Edwardian era, is transformed to look as if he has the head of an elephant.

Apparently, on May 21, 1887, Alexandra of Denmark (1844-1925) the Princess of Wales, Prince Albert’s wife, visited Joseph Merrick, known as the Elephant Man, at London Hospital, where he lived. “Princess Alexandra shook Merrick's hand and sat with him, an experience that left him overjoyed. She gave him a signed photograph of herself, which became a prized possession, and she sent him a Christmas card each year.” [see Wikipedia]

I am unaware of Sommer’s full intentions for this work or even if he attended to use the image from one of the most popular American tobacco brands of the time to allude to the Elephant Man, let alone the kindness of the Princess of Wales. Yet, by photographing the assemblage of objects on the image of Prince Albert, and the distressed surface of the tin, Sommer equalizes each element to the same dimension. The photograph depicts the detail and reality of the moment while alluding to the time of Prince Albert. Knowing this print was made within two years of the negative, and not reprinted later, adds further immediacy to Sommer’s expression.

Curator and art historian, Ksenya Gurshtein, (then the A.W. Mellon postdoctoral curatorial fellow in the department of photographs, National Gallery of Art, Washington) wrote an exceptional feature on Frederick Sommer for the NGA website. She stated: "Sommer did not expressly identify himself with the surrealist movement, though he exhibited with its members several times. Nevertheless, his work reveals that from the late 1930s he was interested in many of the same themes and approaches that the surrealists had begun to explore in the 1920s. The Sommers first met Max Ernst (1891–1976), a prolific surrealist, in 1941 in Los Angeles after Ernst came to the United States fleeing World War II. The friendship deepened after Ernst and his wife, Dorothea Tanning, came to visit the Sommers in 1943 and moved to Sedona, Arizona in 1946… Sommer met Man Ray (1890–1976) in 1941 at the same party in the Hollywood Hills where he met Max Ernst, and afterward the two men continued to follow each other’s work from afar…"

Mounted 13 x 10 inches; signed for authentication purposes by artist's widow, "Madelyn 0. Meatyard" and "573 B - 60" in ink on mount verso.

Daphnia, a genus of small planktonic crustaceans, are 0.2–5 millimetres, 0.01–0.20 in., in length. Daphnia are members of the order Cladocera, and are one of the several small aquatic crustaceans commonly called water fleas because their saltatory swimming style resembles the movements of fleas. Daphnia live in various aquatic environments ranging from acidic swamps to freshwater lakes and ponds.

Signed in ink on print verso.
Illustrated: La Revue du Medecin, No. 3, December 3, 1929: Science et cinema, p. 32. L'Art Vivant, July 1, 1931.
Jean Painleve: Le pieds dans l'eau. Edition Jeu de Paume/LienArt, 2022, p. 232.

Photographer's stamp twice with date, title and measurements in pencil on print verso.
Illustrated: Bouqueret, Christian. Jean Moral: L'Oeil Capteur. Paris: Marval, 1999, p. 83, pl. 68.

Double mounted. Title and date in pencil on mount recto and verso with credit stamp on mount verso.
Illustrated: Fargue, Léon-Paul and Roger Parry. Banalité. Paris: Éditions de la Nouvelle Revue Française, 1930, pl. 14.

Titled stamp and photographer's stamp on print verso.

Photographer's name in pencil on print verso.

Signed in green ink with initials in pencil and photographers stamp on print verso.

Signed and dated "1964-72" in pencil with photographer's stamp in blue on print verso.