Title: Paul Outerbridge Jr.: Photographs
Author: Paul Outerbridge Jr.
Publisher: Rizzoli, 1980
Photographs by Paul Outerbridge Jr.; 159 pages, 59 color and 81 black and white illustrations
As the first significant monograph to be published on Paul Outerbridge, this volume provides an excellent introductory essay on a previously underappreciated, but immensely talented photographer. He was a contemporary of important avant-garde figures in the 1920s, including Man Ray, Picasso, Braque, Picabia, Duchamp, and Stravinsky, but personal choices later in his career pushed him into the historical background. He has subsequently been revived as a significant artist, and his carefully composed and meticulously printed photographs clearly contribute to the history of abstraction and its potential properties in a technological medium. This book presents a chronological view of Outerbridge’s career, beginning with the sharp, geometric abstractions of common objects he produced in the 1920s, and ending with his sumptuous carbro-color prints from the late 1930s and 40s. This late work deals largely with the female nude and lushly textured still life and interior photographs. The juxtaposition of these two periods of his career marks a sharp contrast between the ideals of the early 20th century avant-garde and an increasing turn toward a fiercely independent Technicolor experiment.
