Skyscrapers
Artist
Thurman Rotan
(American, 1903 - 1991)
Date1932
MediumGelatin silver print
DimensionsImage: 4 1/2 × 8 3/4 inches (11.43 × 22.23 cm)
Sheet: 7 11/16 × 9 13/16 inches (19.53 × 24.92 cm)
Sheet: 7 11/16 × 9 13/16 inches (19.53 × 24.92 cm)
Credit LineGift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.
Object number2005.27.4331
SignedSigned and titled on sheet verso, upper left corner, in black pen: "BY THURMAN ROTAN / "SKYSCRAPERS"
InscribedOn sheet verso, bottom right, black stamp: "May 22, 1932".
MarkingsOn sheet recto, bottom, in pencil: "Raw Edge" written with crop lines along perimeter;
On sheet verso, center, in pencil: "American Mural Exhibition [crossed out] / Museum of Modern Art / Opening May 4, 1932 [crossed out]";
On sheet verso, center, black stamp, crossed out with X in pencil: “MUSEUM OF MODERN ART / 11 West 53rd Street, N.Y. / AMERICAN MURAL EXHIBITION / OPENING MAY 4, 1932";
On sheet verso, top right corner, in pencil: "sg/";
On sheet verso, center right, in pencil: "[illeg.] / 8 3/8 x 4 1/4 / [illeg] / Sunday Art / 4 Col.".
On View
Not on viewCollections
DescriptionImage of skyscrapers repeated with clouds in sky above. Exhibition History
American
Art Deco: Designing for the People, 1918-1939, 7/9/2022The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, July 9
2022–January 8 2023, no cat.
Thurman Rotan was one of the earliest American photographers to adopt stylistic traits of the European New Vision of the 1920s, exploring the creative potential of photography's optical and chemical components. Here, he demonstrates the artistic use of collage to construct a dynamic but impossible city. Rotan's subject was not architecture so much as the exhilarating, if often unsettling, energies of the new age.
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