Product Description

Paul Outerbridge Jr. (American, 1896-1958) burst onto the photographic art scene in the early 1920s with images that were visually fresh, technically adept, and decidedly Modernist. He also applied his talent for composition to the commercial world, introducing an artist's sensibility to advertisements for men's haberdashery, glassware, and JELL-O for magazines such as Vogue and Vanity Fair. An early master of the technically complex carbro color process, he used it to photograph nudes, often shown with a variety of props--images that skirted the limits of propriety in their day.
This catalogue is produced for the first exhibition of Outerbridge's work since 1981, to be held March 31 through August 9, 2009, at the J. Paul Getty Museum. It brings together one hundred photographs from all periods and styles of the photographer's career, including his Cubistic still-life images, commercial magazine photography, and nudes. The book includes an essay by the curator and a chronology of the artist's life and work.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #494812 in Books
• Published on: 2009-05-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 164 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780892369614
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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From Publishers Weekly
The essay that accompanies this catalogue to an exhibition at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles is largely biographical. But since Outerbridge (1896–1958) has not yet been the subject of a major critical biography, the information is both fascinating and helpful in placing this major photographic innovator's work in context. Outerbridge focused on narrowing the gap between fine art and commercial work. His fashion and product display work for Vanity Fair and Paris Vogue was successful with both his employers and other artists. In 1930 he began working with color processing and for magazines and advertisers to help sell their products during the Depression. He mastered the difficult tricolor carbon-transfer printing process. Outerbridge's final years in Southern California were often financially difficult, and he slipped into obscurity. It was years after his death that his carefully preserved archives reintroduced his work. The Getty owns the largest public collection of Outerbridge prints, and this elegantly produced catalogue shows him to be not only a master printer but also an artist who continues to influence contemporary photographers. 59 color and 61 b&w photos. (May)
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About the Author

Paul Martineau is assistant curator in the Department of Photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum.

Customer Reviews

Excerpt of a review written by Bondo Wyszpolski
Paul Outerbridge (1896-1958) applied his Modernist aesthetic to commercial photography, and his pictures were published early in the last century in prestigious magazines such as Vanity Fair, Harper's Bazaar, and Vogue. The J. Paul Getty Museum is displaying a little over 100 of his prints, and there's a catalogue to go with them that will remain a source of pleasure and reference long after the work has come down. Martineau glosses over many of the prints and gets serious about a few, here and there. It is, however, a sober and highly readable introduction, to an art photographer of exacting sensibility. We can see the influences, from Pictorialism to Cubism, the parallels with the likes of Edward Weston, and now his heirs, so to speak, in Gregory Crewdson and Thomas Demand.

i guess this man was underated and ovelooked
kinda hard tell things in the language of the empire:to cut it short, as i see those pics i gather this is a very big case of overlooking an artist; this kandisnky like pics are somtehing i've never seen before, and the pic in the main cover is mind blowing;
i have the feeling, that as long you are not too fashionable from the market point of view, you do not even exist, and i think this is here the point with Outerbrige.
anyway, he was not to dedicated to the fashion stuff.
the book is great in my opinion.

Stunning skill and fetishized content
It would be easy with Outerbridge to be mislead by the sharpness of his palette or the oddity of his subjects. One might scale him as a simple eccentric: this would be totally reductionist. His mastery of complex color techniques, his understanding of camera consequences, his control of lighting, and his joy of composition mark him as a technical master on par with the best in more tame genres. That he adds to this an eroticism and sensuality that is non-standard would in itself place him in a special category. That all this is packaged with a sly commentary on bourgeoise values makes him a keeper for anyone seriously interested in photography.