Lot 46

The most important figure in Dutch Dada, Citroen created striking urban photocollages between 1919 and 1925, including Metropolis, 1923, the inspiration for Fritz Lang's film of the same name. Assembled from many hundreds of 'optically cascading' photographs of buildings, Citroen's montages capture the duality of the modern city--while exciting, it is also oppressive. This print is believed to be the only known record of Citroen's photomontage of New York, now lost. Citroen's influence can be felt elsewhere in this sale. Please see lot 49 for a collaged photo-postcard sent to him by fellow-photographer Umbo.

PAUL CITROEN (1896-1983)

New York, 1919

Details

PAUL CITROEN (1896-1983)
New York, 1919
gelatin silver print
credit 'Paul Citroen Amsterdam', title in pencil and Hütich-Hemmler, Weimar credit stamp, this crossed out (on the verso)
image: 5 7/8 x 7 7/8in. (15 x 20cm.)
sheet: 6¼ x 8¼in. (16 x 21cm.)

Provenance

The collection of Kurt Kirchbach, Dresden;
to his widow Hildegard Kirchback;
to Angelika and Hans-Joachim Burdack;
Sotheby's, London, Important Avant-Garde Photographs of the 1920s and 1930s (The Helene Anderson Collection), May 2, 1997, lot 17

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Lot Essay

This print was from the truly remarkable, visionary collection of avant-garde photography constituted around 1930 by Kurt Kirchbach. Lost from view in the early 1930s through political circumstance, a significant part of it appeared at auction in 1997, described by the consignors, in an act of deliberate disinformation, as having been the collection of H.-J. Burdack's mother.

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