The document explores the evolution of photography as an art form, particularly during the modernist period and its connection to movements like Dadaism and Surrealism. It highlights the shift towards experimentation in photographic techniques, the emergence of new styles, and the significant contributions of artists such as Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, and various members of the Group f64. Additionally, it discusses the interplay between artistic freedom, chance, and the conceptualization of art itself, as well as the impact of groups like the Bauhaus on design and photographic practices.

1. Once photography was established as an interpretive medium unto
itself, photography’s position within the arts was reconsidered.
• Photography’s inherent characteristics were examined, and a photographic art
theory emerged.
• Modernist artists stopped using historical subject matter and trying to depict
nature in a realistic, convincing way, and started to explore experimental
representation within their work.
• Artists were freer to experiment with content. (Individual freedom over social
authority.)
• Aesthetic formalism emphasized forms over content. The belief that forms could
become as important as subject matter prevailed.
• Modernist artists also believed that meaning is inherently placed in an artwork by
the artist and read by the viewer.

2. A key feature of the photography of the 1920s was the
emergence of a wide variety of techniques, styles and
approaches.
The photographic climate was one of experimentation,
with photo-collage, montage, camera-less images,
unusual vantage points and extreme close ups.
Dadaism, Surrealism, Constructivism - were about
exploring content, form and sometimes social / political
commentary.

3. Christian Schad - German artist who joined the DADA movement in 1916.
Schadograph, 1916
• DADA artists favored accident and chance in the making of their work. They
were interested in the absurd, the random and the ridiculous -- in direct
opposition to the conventional notions of art.

4. Man Ray (Emmanuel Rudnitsky), Rayograph, 1920.
“A certain amount of contempt for the material exmployed to express an idea is
indispensable to the purest realization of this idea.”

5. Man Ray, Rayographs, 1920s.

6. Man Ray,Torso, Sabattier effect, 1920.
The sabattier effect (first documented by French scientist Armand Sabattier in
1862) is the partial reversal of an image caused by exposing it to light during
development. This gives the print both positive and negative qualities and adds
“halos,” called Mackie lines between adjacent light and dark areas.

7. Man Ray, Sabattier (solarization) effect, 1920.

8. Man Ray, Portrait of Lee Miller, Solarization effect, 1920s.

9. Man Ray’s work was inspired in part by the unique vision of the
Dadaists and the Surrealists.
• Dada was not a particular style but claimed the freedom to
experiment.
• The Dadaists were interested in using the element of chance
and a sense of playfulness in their work. Their art was produced
in unconventional ways and took unusual forms.
• The artist Jean Arp did a piece where he dropped torn paper
and let it fall. “Arranged according to the laws of chance.”

10. Kurt Schwitters, Collage, 1920s.

11. Schwitters, Collage, 1920s.

12. Marcel Duchamp was associated with the Dada group and invented the readymade
- taking common manufactured objects that he promoted as art.
• He wanted to create “a new thought for that object.” - to demystify art by proclaiming that
there were so many interesting things in the world, there was no need to make objects.
• Duchamp’s aproach was conceptual, making the mental act of choice--not the physical act
of the hand--the center of creation.
Duchamp (R. Mutt), Fountain, Readymade, 1917.

13. “In 1913 I had the happy idea to fasten a bicycle wheel to a kitchen stool and
watch it turn. It was then that the word readymade came to mind.”
Duchamp, Readymade, 1913

14. “Generate ideas, no matter how wild or far-fetched, and enable new
associations to be made in the gray matter of your brain.”
Bottle Rack, 1914

15. In 1919, Duchamp drew a moustache and goatee on a postcard sized
reproduction of the Mona Lisa, creating one of the most well known acts of
degrading a famous work of art.
When pronounced in French, the title L.H.O.O.Q., puns the phrase “Elle a
chaud au cul,” which translates colloquially as “She has a hot ass.”

16. Picasso, Bull Head, 1945

17. Man Ray, Object, 1920s.

18. Man Ray, Object to be Destroyed, 1920s.

19. Man Ray, Self Portrait, oil on canvas, bells, pushbutton

20. Surrealism came about after WW1 from Dadaism. It was defined as a state
of mind rather than a specific artistic style. The surrealists were interested
in using dreams, the unconscious and free association.
DeChirico, oil on canvas, 1914

21. Surrealists were interested in the liberation from conscious reason and convention.
The poet Andre Bréton wrote a Manifesto of Surrealism in 1924 which said in part:
“Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of
previously neglected associations, in the omnipotence of dream, in the disinterested
play of thought.”

22. Dora Maar, Dream-Like, 1935

23. Man Ray, the Veil, 1930, Glass Tears, 1930-32

24. Man Ray, Le Violon d’Ingres, 1924

25. Man Ray, fashion for Harper’s Bazaar, 1937.

26. Man Ray, Self Portrait, 1930-32

27. Raul Ubac, La Conciliabule, Brulage print, 1938

28. Hans Bellmer with doll

29. Bellmer, Doll (La Poupée), 1935

34. Claude Cahun, Self Portrait, 1928

35. Cahun, Self Portrait, 1929

36. Cahun, Self Portrait, 1917

37. Cahun, Self Portraits, 1917

38. Foto ringl + pit, Petrole Hahn Advertising, Berlin, 1931.

39. George Hoyningen-Huene, Schiaparelli Beachwear, 1930

40. Horst P. Horst, Electric Beauty, 1930s.

41. Paul Outerbridge, Saltine Box, 1922.

42. Outerbridge, Ide Collar, 1922.

43. Outerbridge, Canes, 1930s.

44. Outerbridge, Top Hat & Muffler, 1930s.

45. Outerbridge, Mannequin, 1920s.

46. .

48. Outerbridge, Still Life, 1937.

49. Outerbridge, Nude with Meatpacker’s Gloves, 1930s.

50. Man Ray, Solarized Nude, 1927.

51. Outerbridge, 1930s.

52. Nikolas Murray, advertisement, 1940s.

53. Nikolas Murray, advertisement, 1940s.

54. Nikolas Murray, advertisement, 1940s.

55. Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, photograms, 1923.

57. The Bauhaus was formed in 1919 during the Weimar Republic
(1918-1933), and became the most influential architectural and design
movement since the time of the Renaissance.

58. The photography work of the Bauhaus artists was marked by a modern
and geometric style, with unusual perspectives and tight framing. This style
became known as the New Vision or New Objectivity.

59. Maholy-Nagy came from a Constructivist background.
Constructivism - a period from 1913 through the 1920s during which Russian avant-garde
artists rejected traditional easel painting and “art for art’s sake” in favor of
utilitarian designs intended for mass production.

60. Lazlo Moholy-Nagy, Lucia Moholy, photomontage (fotoplastik)

61. Another distinctive characteristic of the New Vision / New Objectivity is the close up.
It was regarded as one means for the objective presentation of fact.

65. Florence Henri, Portrait.

66. Florence Henri

67. Henri, Perfume Advertisement, 1930s.

68. Henri, Cubist Still Life, 1930s

69. Herbert Bayer, early design work, 1921

70. Bayer, early design work, 1921

71. Bayer, postcard design for Bauhaus exhibition

72. Bayer, Lonely Metro, 1932

73. Bayer, Harper’s Bazaar, 1940

74. Albert Renger-Patzsch, from The World is Beautiful, 1928

75. Renger-Patzsch, from The World is Beautiful, 1928

76. Karl Blossfeldt, from Art Forms in Nature, 1928

77. Blossfeldt, from Art Forms in Nature, 1928

78. Hannah Hoch, Cut With the Kitchen Knife Dada Through the last Weimar Beer Belly
Cultural Epoch of Germany, photomontage, 1919

79. Hannah Hoch, The Legs of Marlene, photomontage, 1919

80. Hoch, photomontage, 1919

81. Hoch, photomontage, ND

82. Hannah Hoch, Self Portrait, 1930s

83. John Heartfield (Helmut Herzfeld), Hitler the Superman Swallows Gold and Spews
Junk, photomontage, 1930s.

84. Heartfield, With His Call, He Will Gas Us All, 1930s.

85. Heartfield, Hurray, the Butter is Gone!, photomontage, 1930s.

87. Aleksander Rodchenko, Advertisment, 1923, Nine Inch Nails logo, 1987
Suprematism (1915-1923) was a Russian avant-garde movement to
reduce painting to pure geometric abstraction by eliminating any allusions
to the real world.

88. Rodchenko, Advertisment for baby pacifiers, 1923

89. Rodchenko, Photomontage, 1923

90. Rodchenko, Breakfast Table, 1924

91. Rodchenko, Pioneers, 1924

92. Rodchenko, (left) Courier, (right) Portrait of My Mother 1920s

93. André Kertész (1894-1985)

94. Kertész, Siesta, Paris, 1927.

95. Kertész, Meudon, 1928.

96. Kertész, Chez Mondrian, 1927.

97. Kertész, Satiric Dancer, 1926.

98. Kertész, Distortion #60, 1926.

99. Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004), On the Banks of the Marne, 1938

100. Cartier-Bresson, Valencia, Spain, 1933

101. Cartier-Bresson, Gare St. Lazure, Paris, 1953

102. Cartier-Bresson, Pub, London, 1930s

103. Cartier-Bresson, Sleeping Fruit Vendor, Spain, 1930s

104. Edward Weston (1886-1958), Prologue to a Sad Spring, 1920.

105. Charles Sheeler

106. Weston, Armco Steel, 1922.

107. Weston, Pulqueria, 1926.

108. Weston, Excusado, 1925.

109. Weston, Garlic, 1927

110. Weston, Pepper, 1930

111. Weston, 1927

112. Group f64 - Ansel Adams (1902-1984), Moon and Half Dome, 1930s

113. Group F64, founded in Oakland, CA. in 1932 by Ansel Adams,
Edward Weston, Imogen Cuningham, Willard Van Dyke, Sonia
Noskowiak, John Paul Edwards and Henry Swift.
• They promoted straight, modern photography. They named themselves
after the smallest aperture on the camera lens to symbolize their
allegiance to: sharply focused images printed on glossy gelatin silver
papers without any signs of pictorial “handwork” and mounted on white
boad.
• “…Group f64 limits its members and invitational names to those
workers who are striving to define photography as an art form by simple
and direct presentation through purely photographic methods. The
group will show no work at any time that does not conform to its
standards of pure photography. Pure photography is defined as
possessing no qualities of technique, composition or idea, derivative of
any other art form.”

114. Adams, Merced River, 1930s

115. Adams, Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, 1944

117. Imogen Cunningham (1883-1976)

118. Cunningham, 1926
“The greatest aesthetic beauty, the fullest power of expression, the real worth of the
medium lies in ts pure form rather than its superficial modifications.” (F64 group)

119. Cunningham, Braille, 1930s

120. Cunningham, Self Portrait on Geary St., 1958

121. Cunningham, Irene “Bobby” Libarry, from after 90, 1976

122. • 0 %0 %
Film un Foto - an international exhibition in Stuttgart, Germany, 1929. The show
consisted of about 1,000 photographs from Europe, the Soviet Union and the
United States. The list of artists included Weston, Cunningham, Outerbridge,
Steichen, Moholy-Nagy, Renger-Patzsch, Bayer, Heartfield, Rodchenko and Man
Ray.