Zig-Zag Cigarette Papers
The crisp peaks and sloping planes of these cigarette papers assume a sculptural quality before the photographer’s lens. Magnifying them many times beyond their ordinary scale, Alban accords the disposable papers an illusory permanence, invoking the lasting power one might seek in a well-rolled cigarette. The peripatetic photographer, who operated successive studios in Alexandria, Brussels, Paris, and Cairo, closely followed the formal inventions of avant-garde photography, progressively introducing them to his own commercial practice. Here adapting a spare and geometric modernist idiom for advertising, he arranges his composition for the French firm Zig-Zag with a nod to the company name.
Artwork Details
- Title: Zig-Zag Cigarette Papers
- Artist: Aram Alban (Armenian (active France and Egypt), Istanbul 1883–1961 Cairo)
- Date: 1929 or later
- Medium: Gelatin silver print
- Dimensions: 29.6 x 23.0 cm (11 5/8 x 9 1/16 in.)
Frame: 20 x 16 in. - Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, 1987
- Object Number: 1987.1100.385
- Curatorial Department: Photographs
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