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Lonely Metropolitan

Herbert Bayer American, born Austria
1932
Not on view
On loan to The Met
This work of art is currently on loan to the museum.
A Bauhaus-trained graphic designer who immigrated to New York City in 1938, Bayer was known for his innovative work in advertising and book publishing. Although never formally connected with Surrealism, he was fascinated by dream imagery and embraced photomontage as a means of visualizing the psychological realities of modernity. In 1931 he began a series of photomontages illustrating his own dreams, which included this emblematic image in which the artist’s eyes stare from the palms of his hands, cut off at the wrists and floating mysteriously in the courtyard of a Berlin apartment block.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Lonely Metropolitan
  • Artist: Herbert Bayer (American (born Austria), Haag 1900–1985 Montecito, California)
  • Date: 1932
  • Medium: Gelatin silver print
  • Dimensions: Image: 26.8 x 34 cm (10 9/16 x 13 3/8 in.)
    Frame: 47 x 57.2 cm (18 1/2 x 22 1/2 in.)
  • Classification: Photographs
  • Credit Line: Herbert Bayer Collection and Archive, Denver Art Museum, Gift of BP Corporation
  • Curatorial Department: Photographs