Zig-Zag Cigarette Papers

1929 or later

Not on view

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

More Artwork

By Aram Alban

In the same medium

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[Paper Pulp in Beater], Aram Alban Armenian, Gelatin silver print — [Paper Pulp in Beater]
Aram Alban
1930s

Untitled, Kohei Yoshiyuki Japanese, Gelatin silver print — Untitled
Kohei Yoshiyuki
1971

Three Women In A Country Funeral, Long Xian, Shaanxi Province
, Liu Zheng Chinese, Gelatin silver print — Three Women In A Country Funeral, Long Xian, Shaanxi Province
Liu Zheng
2000

Boden Sea, Uttwil, Hiroshi Sugimoto Japanese, Gelatin silver print — Boden Sea, Uttwil
Hiroshi Sugimoto
1993

Runner in the City, El Lissitzky Russian, Gelatin silver print — Runner in the City
El Lissitzky
ca. 1926

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