Göhnender Pavian

ca. 1928
Not on view
"Here the movement of 1/100th of a second is frozen with a truthfulness to life which neither brush nor pencil could ever surpass," wrote Renger-Patzch of this image in New Camera Views. The next year (1928) he composed a picture book, The World is Beautiful, which treats man-made and natural objects as structural analogues of one another. This organizing principle rejected the visual delight of the atypical or anomalous, so vivid in this picture; consequently the book reproduced a static and conventional "portrait" of the baboon instead of this image.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Göhnender Pavian
  • Artist: Albert Renger-Patzsch (German, Wurzburg 1897–1966 Wamel)
  • Date: ca. 1928
  • Medium: Gelatin silver print
  • Dimensions: 22.2 x 16.9 cm (8 3/4 x 6 5/8 in.)
  • Classification: Photographs
  • Credit Line: Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, 1987
  • Object Number: 1987.1100.114
  • Rights and Reproduction: © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
  • Curatorial Department: Photographs

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