About this artwork
Frantisek Drtikol’s training as a studio photographer, just after 1900, included three years at the Institute for Photography in Munich, where apprentices were schooled in Art Nouveau precepts as well as photographic technique. An aesthetic sensibility on the border between art and design marked his career, though this shifted in later years (as seen in this work) toward the angular patterns of Art Deco. Drtikol’s studio business in downtown Prague traded on his artistic cachet; he and his assistants made conventional portraits for the domestic market, while sending daring nude studies to amateur exhibitions around the globe. The artist’s melodramatic stagings of progressively leaner female models concentrate fears and fantasies surrounding the athletic “New Woman,” a media construction of the 1920s. His mix of figures and abstract props also marks an original contribution to the imagery of expressive dance, which became a craze throughout central Europe at this time.
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Status
- Currently Off View
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Department
- Photography and Media
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Artist
- Frantisek Drtikol
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Title
- Untitled
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Place
- Czech Republic (Artist's nationality:)
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Date
- Made 1929–1939
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Medium
- Gum bichromate print
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Inscriptions
- Blind stamped recto, lower right: "COPYRIGHT / DRTIKOL PRAGUE" [in rectangle]; verso unchecked
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Dimensions
- Image/paper/mount: 29.1 × 23.3 cm (11 1/2 × 9 3/16 in.)
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Credit Line
- H. L. and Mary T. Adams Fund and Edward E. Ayer Endowment in memory of Charles L. Hutchinson
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Reference Number
- 1986.249
Extended information about this artwork
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.
