Exhibition dates: 29th June – 15th September 2013
.
C’est Magnifique!
.
Many thankx to the Delaware Art Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
.
.
.
Ilse Bing (1899-1998)
Cancan Dancers
Moulin Rouge 1931
Gelatin silver print
6 1/4 × 9 in. (15.9 × 22.9 cm)
Collection of Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg
© Estate of Ilse Bing. Courtesy Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York
.
.
Ilse Bing (1899-1998)
Champ-de-Mars from the Eiffel Tower
1931
7 1/2 x 11 inches
Collection of Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg
© Estate of Ilse Bing, Courtesy Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York
.
.
Ilse Bing (1899-1998)
Boarding House for Young Women, Tours
1935
Gelatin silver print
11 1/8 × 7 1/2 in. (28.3 × 19.1 cm)
Collection of Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg
© Estate of Ilse Bing. Courtesy Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York
.
.
Brassaï (1899-1984)
Lovers, Bal Musette des Quatre Saisons, rue de Lappe
c. 1932
9 3/8 x 7 inches
Collection of Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg
© The Brassaï Estate-RMN
.
.
“In the early 20th century, between the two world wars, Paris saw a fervor of change. From 1910 to 1940, the city became a creative epicenter for artistic exploration, attracting international avant-garde artists – including photographers experimenting with Surrealism, Modernism, and the new reportage. French Twist: Masterworks of Photography from Atget to Man Ray, on view at the Delaware Art Museum from June 29, 2013 through September 15, 2013, features 100 vintage prints from this golden age of French photography and explores the variety and inventiveness of native and immigrant photographers working in France in the early 20th century.
This exhibition presents a number of themes that capture the flavor and nightlife of Paris at this exciting moment. “Life of the Streets,” “Diversions,” and “Paris by Night” are just some of the topics that these masterful photographs explore. Visitors will experience Eugène Atget’s lyrical views of Paris streets and gardens, Man Ray’s surrealist experiments, and Henri Cartier-Bresson’s pioneering photojournalism, as well as works by Ilse Bing, Brassaï, Jacques-Henri Lartigue, André Kertész, and Dora Maar. Many of these artists settled in France for life, while others, fleeing the Nazis, brought their Paris‐trained sensibilities and influences to America.
.
Eugène Atget
The exhibition opens with one of the most significant figures in the history of photography, Eugène Atget, whose work influenced a range of artists from Surrealists to documentary photographers. This selection encompasses pictures of city streets, architectural details, and the gardens at Versailles and includes one of his most famous photographs, Boulevard de Strasbourg, Corsets (1912).
.
La vie de la rue (Life of the Street)
This section includes images of the streets and buildings of Paris – of the bustling Champ-de-Mars and the deserted Avenue du Maine – and features a large selection of photographs by Ilse Bing. In her modernist views of urban architecture, Bing provides a modern take on the old city through unexpected angles and dramatic cropping.
.
Divertissement (Diversions)
Divertissement focuses on the myriad amusements available in the City of Lights. Lartigue provides an insider’s view of upper-class life in the Belle Epoque, while Bing and Brassaï chronicle the attractions of the dance hall, the theater, and the street.
.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
The master of the “decisive moment” and one of the most significant photojournalists of the 20th century, Henri Cartier-Bresson is featured along with 17 famous photographs from his travels around the world. This section includes his stellar images of the Spanish Second Republic and his iconic view of the coronation of George VI in London.
.
Les basses classes (The Lower Classes)
Between the wars, photographers from Ilse Bing to Andre Kertész to Brassaï chronicled lives of poor Parisians, often bringing a Modernist sensibility, rather than a reformer’s eye, to scenes of urban poverty.
.
Paris de nuit (Paris by Night)
In 1933 Brassaï released his photo book Paris by Night, which chronicled the city’s streets and amusements after dark. The book became an immediate success and Brassaï became famous as the foremost photographer of the city’s bars and brothels, performers, and prostitutes.
.
L’art pour l’art (Art for Art’s Sake)
This section focuses on the technical experimentation and virtuoso technique of photographers including Pierre Dubreuil, Edward Steichen, and Pal Funk Angelo. It features examples of unusual techniques like cliché-verre, solarization, and oil printing.
Cliché verre is a combination of art and photography. In brief, it is a method of either etching, painting or drawing on a transparent surface, such as glass, thin paper or film and printing the resulting image on a light sensitive paper in a photographic darkroom. It is a process first practiced by a number of French painters during the early 19th century. The French landscape painter Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot was the best known of these. Some contemporary artists have developed techniques for achieving a variety of line, tone, texture and color by experimenting with film, frosted Mylar, paint and inks and a wide assortment of tools for painting, etching, scratching, rubbing and daubing.
Cliché verre is French. Cliché is a printing term: a printing plate cast from movable type; while verre means glass. (Text from Wikipedia)
.
Andre Kertész, Dora Maar, Man Ray
These three important photographers – all immigrants to Paris between the Wars and all involved in Surrealist movement – are featured in individual sections that highlight their most famous works. Kertész is represented by his photographs of the painter Piet Mondrian’s studio. Maar’s Surrealist street photographs capture her dark humor, and a full complement of Man Ray’s experimental and psychologically charged images summarize his photographic interests.
.
La figure (Portraits and Nudes)
La Figure showcases experimental approaches to the classic subject of the female nude, including a cameraless photograph and a solarization by Man Ray and a distortion created with fun-house-type mirrors by Kertész.
.
Ilse Bing (1899-1998), nicknamed the “Queen of the Leica” after her camera of choice, moved to Paris in 1930 and immersed herself in its cultural milieu, interacting with painters like Pavel Tchelitchev and fashionistas Elsa Schiaparelli and Carmel Snow. The decade she spent in France is considered the high point of her artistic career.
Dora Maar (1907-1997) created startlingly imaginative Surrealist photographs under the tutelage of Man Ray. However, she is best known as Picasso’s lover, muse, and “Weeping Woman” from 1936 to 1943. Her photographs documenting Picasso’s creation of Guernica hang alongside the painting in the Reina Sofía museum in Madrid.
Jacques‐Henri Lartigue (1894-1986), considered by many to be a child prodigy, received his first camera as a gift when he was six years old and immediately set to work documenting the activities of his energetic family and circle of friends. Lartigue’s light‐hearted snapshots capture the essence of France’s Belle Époque, the halcyon period before World War I when it seemed that modernity would bring nothing but progress and delight.
.
.
Eugène Atget (1857-1957)
Boulevard de Strasbourg Corsets
1912
Printing-out paper
8 3/4 x 7 inches
Collection of Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg
.
.
Eugène Atget (1857-1927)
Rue Egynard
1901
Albumen print
8 1/4 × 7 in. (21 × 17.8 cm)
Collection of Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg
.
.
Man Ray (1890-1976)
Solarized nude
1930
11 5/8 x 8 7/8 inches
Collection of Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg
© 2013 Man Ray Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY / ADAGP, Paris
.
.
Edward Steichen (1879-1973)
Three Pears and an Apple, Voulangis, France
1921
Gelatin silver print
14 x 11 inches
Collection of Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg
.
.
Man Ray (1890-1976)
Kiki de Montparnasse
1923
11 x 8 3/4 inches
Collection of Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg
© 2013 Man Ray Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY / ADAGP, Paris
.
.
Brassaï (1899-1984)
Fille de Montmartre playing Russian billiards, Blvd Rochechouart
1932-33
11 1/4 x 8 1/4 inches
Collection of Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg
© The Brassaï Estate-RMN
.
.
Delaware Art Museum
2301 Kentmere Parkway
Wilmington, DE 19806
Opening hours:
Wednesday – Saturday 10.00 am – 4.00 pm
Sunday noon – 4.00 pm
Delaware Art Museum website
LIKE ART BLART ON FACBEOOK
Back to top
Filed under: American, american photographers, beauty, black and white photography, documentary photography, Eugene Atget, exhibition, existence, gallery website, intimacy, light, memory, Paris, photography, portrait, space, street photography, surrealism, time Tagged: american artist, American photography, Art for Art's Sake, Bal Musette des Quatre Saisons, Blvd Rochechouart, Boarding House for Young Women, Boulevard de Strasbourg Corsets, Brassaï Fille de Montmartre playing Russian billiards, Brassaï Lovers, Brassaï Paris by Night, Brassaï Paris de nuit, Brassai, Cancan dancers, Champ-de-Mars from the Eiffel Tower, cliché-verre, Diversions, Edward Steichen, Edward Steichen Three Pears and an Apple, Eiffel Tower, Eugène Atget Boulevard de Strasbourg Corsets, Eugène Atget Rue Egynard, Fille de Montmartre playing Russian billiards, france, french artist, French photographers, French photography, French Twist, French Twist: Masterworks of Photography from Atget to Man Ray, Ilse Bing, Ilse Bing Boarding House for Young Women, Ilse Bing Cancan Dancers Moulin Rouge, Ilse Bing Champ-de-Mars from the Eiffel Tower, Ilse Bing Queen of the Leica, Kiki de Montparnasse, L'art pour l'art, La vie de la rue, Les basses classes, Life of the Street, Lovers Bal Musette des Quatre Saisons, Man Ray, Man Ray Kiki de Montparnasse, Man Ray Solarized nude, Moulin Rouge, oil printing, Paris by Night, Paris de nuit, Queen of the Leica, rue de Lappe, Rue Egynard, Russian billiards, solarization, Solarized nude, Surrealist movement, The Lower Classes, Three Pears and an Apple Voulangis France, Tours, Voulangis