Composition
This photograph is informed by the artist's experiences as an advertising photographer, X-ray technician, and assistant to Man Ray. By printing through a sandwich of several negatives, Tabard fabricated a nude that inhabits no definable space or time. She is at once Pygmalion's Galatea or Botticelli's Venus while remaining a Parisian model who has just stripped off her stockings. For the Surrealists, the female form was the subject of endless, obsessive reworkings.
Artwork Details
- Title: Composition
- Artist: Maurice Tabard (French, Lyons 1897–1984 Nice)
- Date: 1929
- Medium: Gelatin silver print
- Dimensions: 22.9 x 17.5 cm (9 x 6 7/8 in.)
- Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, 1987
- Object Number: 1987.1100.141
- Curatorial Department: Photographs
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