Untitled
A pathbreaking animator best-known for his more than two dozen experimental films, Robert Breer also produced abstract paintings, drawings, motorized sculptures, and flipbooks. Born in Detroit, he moved to Paris in 1949 on the GI Bill where he introduced his own take on hard-edge abstraction inspired by the reductive purity of Piet Mondrian’s work. To develop the implied movement of his paintings, he started to experiment with animation, first through flipbooks and then film. This small object—the artist’s first flipbook—marks a pivotal moment in Breer’s practice as he transitioned from painting to film. Its ninety-two pages (actually clear photo slides), bound together with screws, depict a continuous sequence of abstract images; lines and shapes morph and intersect as the pages are flipped, simulating movement. Breer wouldn’t make his first film, Form Phases, for another two years.
Artwork Details
- Title: Untitled
- Artist: Robert Breer (American, Detroit, Michigan 1926–2011 Tucson, Arizona)
- Date: 1950
- Medium: Flipbook: Ninety-two Slidecraft pages, screws, ink and watercolor
- Dimensions: 4 × 3 1/4 × 1 3/16 in. (10.1 × 8.2 × 3 cm)
- Classifications: Books, Sculpture
- Credit Line: Gift of Kate Flax, 2026
- Object Number: 2026.301
- Rights and Reproduction: Kate Flax
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art
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