Camera Obscura

1937

Roland Penrose
English, 1900-1984

Status: On View, Gallery 397
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: Roland Penrose
Title: Camera Obscura
Place: England (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1937
Medium: College composed of cut-and-pasted printed elements, including Japanese paper, with charcoal, gouache, and graphite, on ivory cardboard
Inscriptions: Signed, dated, and titled, lower right: "R. Penrose 1937"; inscribed, lower left: "Camera Obscura"
Dimensions: 75.7 × 101.2 cm (29 13/16 × 39 7/8 in.)
Credit Line: Lindy and Edwin Bergman Collection
Reference Number: 2018.348

Harriet Janis and Rudi Blesh, Collage: Personalities, Concepts, Techniques (Philadelphia, 1962), p. 96, fig. 108.
Kurt von Meier, “Los Angeles Letter,” Art International 10 (Apr. 20, 1966), p. 69 (ill.).
Dawn Ades, with Margherita Andreotti and Adam Jolles, Surrealist Art: The Lindy and Edwin Bergman Collection at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1997), pp. 214-15, cat. 105 (color ill.).

Possibly London, Mayor Gallery, “Roland Penrose” 1939, cat. 10, 11, 12, or 13.
Santa Barbara, University of California Art Gallery, “Surrealism: A State of Mind, 1924-1965,” 1966, cat. 53 (ill.).
Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art, “Dada and Surrealism in Chicago Collections,” 1984–1985, p. 201 (ill.).

Sold by the artist to William N. Copley, Los Angeles, 1959; sold Sotheby’s, New York, Nov. 5 or 6, 1979, lot 289, to Lindy and Edwin Bergman, Chicago; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2018.

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.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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