Bewegungsstudie (Movement Study), 1925

Entitled Movement study, Koppitz’s impactful and most celebrated image certainly suggests, in the elegant lines of the naked central figure and her three draped attendant figures, a moment from the choreography of a modern dance–eternally stilled and frozen in the moment through photography. This composition attracted considerable attention in its day and fine prints of the image were exhibited in photo-salons all over the world. Such attention was well deserved, as is the esteem in which the subject is still held by historians and collectors. For, beyond the immediate appeal of its enigmatic, haunting character, its dark and mystical eroticism, the image remains powerfully emblematic of a time and place, of the cultural mood of Vienna in the 1920s, in a way that resonates through the decades.

Because the photographer has used the bromoil transfer process to create this oversized variant, the resulting image appears laterally reversed from its more commonly known orientation. With the bromoil transfer technique, the artist can add ink to darken areas or use a brush to clear highlights and lighten shadows in between inkings of the image. This flexibility provides for total control of tonal values by the artist, while allowing for subtle variations in each unique, hand-inked print.