On the Construction Site

1929

Not on view

Mieczysław Berman first encountered photomontage while perusing the bookshops of his native Warsaw, and was delighted by the frenetic compositions he found in the pages of German avant-garde publications. “It was a great surprise for me to see photographs cut out and pasted on white paper,” he later recalled, marveling at the synthesis of photography and graphic design proposed by artists like Laszlo Moholy-Nagy; "A few lines with a pencil could create something radically new." The components of this montage were likewise culled from books and magazines. Alongside photo-fragments, flat geometric planes evoke sections of a structure yet to be built, and the silhouette of a laborer suggests its superhuman scale. Together, these found materials conjure the soaring verticality of a skyscraper still under construction.

Artwork Details

Title: On the Construction Site
Artist: Mieczysław Berman (Polish, 1903–1975)
Date: 1929
Medium: Reconstructed collage of halftone prints, ink, and graphite, ca. 1960s
Dimensions: 70.0 x 50.1 cm (27 9/16 x 19 3/4 in.)
Classification: Collages
Credit Line: Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, 1987
Object Number: 1987.1100.17
Curatorial Department: Photographs

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