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Lot Essay
Over a decade before the advent of Kodachrome color film in 1935, a subtractive method of color photography was developed that produced color prints from black and white negatives. Called the three color-carbro transfer process or carbro, it was complex, expensive, and time consuming, but it produced the most vivid and long-lasting color prints. Like the subtle modulation of tone captured in his platinum prints, the exquisite rendering of texture, light, and color in Paul Outerbridge’s carbro prints testifies to an unparalleled command of this medium.
Many of Outerbridge’s most successful carbro prints deal with the subject of the female nude. The complex process allowed for naturalistically reproduced subtle skin tone variations—something that had not been done before. Rendering form, texture, and color as an expression of intention and desire, Outerbridge’s ideal of feminine beauty and its formation reflect back to classical tropes. Investigating the underlying formal principle of beauty within a composition, the photographer rarely sought the obvious allure of surface appearances. Somewhat askew, this photograph’s composition invites us to view the stark division between vividly colored backdrop and grey studio wall, sumptuous textured rug and the hard concrete floor it covers. The photograph, like the female forms that populate it, is revealed to be an overtly fabricated object of desire. The carefully conceived and constructed set isolates a unique sensuality in which sumptuous forms, textures, and tones reach the viewer through the impersonal intimacy that marks Outerbridge’s most compelling nude studies. Closely tied to the Surrealist treatment of women as myth and object of obsession, Outerbridge’s nudes relate thematically to the efforts of photographers such as Clarence John Laughlin—also represented in the Hillman collection—who attempted to show desires, fears, and frustration through the representation of the symbolic contents of the subconscious. The star of Bethlehem demarcates a subverted nativity—three wise-women and a bright light guides the viewer to the holy subject of worship and salvation, but exposed sets, dirty feet, and cheap fur rugs make evident the soiled realities of wholly mortal libidinal desire.
Many of Outerbridge’s most successful carbro prints deal with the subject of the female nude. The complex process allowed for naturalistically reproduced subtle skin tone variations—something that had not been done before. Rendering form, texture, and color as an expression of intention and desire, Outerbridge’s ideal of feminine beauty and its formation reflect back to classical tropes. Investigating the underlying formal principle of beauty within a composition, the photographer rarely sought the obvious allure of surface appearances. Somewhat askew, this photograph’s composition invites us to view the stark division between vividly colored backdrop and grey studio wall, sumptuous textured rug and the hard concrete floor it covers. The photograph, like the female forms that populate it, is revealed to be an overtly fabricated object of desire. The carefully conceived and constructed set isolates a unique sensuality in which sumptuous forms, textures, and tones reach the viewer through the impersonal intimacy that marks Outerbridge’s most compelling nude studies. Closely tied to the Surrealist treatment of women as myth and object of obsession, Outerbridge’s nudes relate thematically to the efforts of photographers such as Clarence John Laughlin—also represented in the Hillman collection—who attempted to show desires, fears, and frustration through the representation of the symbolic contents of the subconscious. The star of Bethlehem demarcates a subverted nativity—three wise-women and a bright light guides the viewer to the holy subject of worship and salvation, but exposed sets, dirty feet, and cheap fur rugs make evident the soiled realities of wholly mortal libidinal desire.