Gothic Pietà

1928

Not on view

Between the two world wars, Renger-Patzsch was one of the champions of straight photography in Germany and an advocate for a modern aesthetic style known as Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity). He believed that photography’s chief value lay in its ability to render the texture and detail of physical objects with absolute precision. This close-up of the suffering face of Christ from a German Gothic Pietà was reproduced in the artist’s landmark book Die Welt ist Schön (The World Is Beautiful), published in 1928. The book’s sequence of one hundred tightly cropped and sharply focused images of plants, animals, landscapes, and industrial subjects suggested that the camera could disclose aspects of the essential nature of objects that were otherwise invisible to the naked eye.

Artwork Details

Overview

Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings

Provenance

Exhibition History

Title: Gothic Pietà
Artist: Albert Renger-Patzsch (German, Wurzburg 1897–1966 Wamel)
Date: 1928
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Dimensions: Image: 16.5 x 22.5 cm (6 1/2 x 8 7/8 in.)
Classification: Photographs
Credit Line: Gilman Collection, Museum Purchase, 2005
Object Number: 2005.100.368
Rights and Reproduction: © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Curatorial Department: Photographs

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