Otto Kraft
Still Life With Guitarcirca 1920, printed circa 1920

On view:

Geffen Galleries, floor 1

Black and white photograph of a still life with an acoustic guitar leaning against a pale backdrop, a pear, and small cylindrical objects on a dark tabletop

Artist or Maker: Otto Kraft
Title: Still Life With Guitar
Date Made: circa 1920, printed circa 1920
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Dimensions: Image: 4 7/16 × 6 11/16 in. (11.27 × 17 cm) Primary support: 4 7/16 × 6 11/16 in. (11.27 × 17 cm) Secondary support: 7 15/16 × 8 15/16 in. (20.2 × 22.7 cm) Mat: 16 × 20 in. (40.64 × 50.8 cm)
Credit Line: The Marjorie and Leonard Vernon Collection, gift of The Annenberg Foundation, acquired from Carol Vernon and Robert Turbin
Accession Number: M.2008.40.1203
Classification: Photographs
Collecting Area: Photography
Curatorial Notes: Otto Kraft was not a professional photographer, but in his capacity as a graphic designer he participated in several major photography exhibitions. This still life combines a variety of surfaces—paper, the polished wood of a guitar, and a pear—and appears to be primarily a study of light and shadow. Inadvertently resembling a collage by Pablo Picasso or Georges Braque, Kraft’s composition was most likely either an experiment or a preparatory study for another task. It also reflects the emphasis in German photography in the 1930s on rigorous objectivity grounded in the close observation of detail in keeping with what artist, theorist, and Bauhaus instructor László Moholy-Nagy enthusiastically described as a “new vision.”

Britt Salvesen

2024
Selected Bibliography: Salvesen, Britt. See the Light: Photography, Perception, Cognition: the Marjorie and Leonard Vernon Collection. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; New York: DelMonico Books/Prestel, 2013.

Otto Kraft
Still Life With Guitarcirca 1920, printed circa 1920

On view:

Geffen Galleries, floor 1

Artist or Maker: Otto Kraft
Title: Still Life With Guitar
Date Made: circa 1920, printed circa 1920
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Dimensions: Image: 4 7/16 × 6 11/16 in. (11.27 × 17 cm) Primary support: 4 7/16 × 6 11/16 in. (11.27 × 17 cm) Secondary support: 7 15/16 × 8 15/16 in. (20.2 × 22.7 cm) Mat: 16 × 20 in. (40.64 × 50.8 cm)
Credit Line: The Marjorie and Leonard Vernon Collection, gift of The Annenberg Foundation, acquired from Carol Vernon and Robert Turbin
Accession Number: M.2008.40.1203
Classification: Photographs
Collecting Area: Photography
Curatorial Notes: Otto Kraft was not a professional photographer, but in his capacity as a graphic designer he participated in several major photography exhibitions. This still life combines a variety of surfaces—paper, the polished wood of a guitar, and a pear—and appears to be primarily a study of light and shadow. Inadvertently resembling a collage by Pablo Picasso or Georges Braque, Kraft’s composition was most likely either an experiment or a preparatory study for another task. It also reflects the emphasis in German photography in the 1930s on rigorous objectivity grounded in the close observation of detail in keeping with what artist, theorist, and Bauhaus instructor László Moholy-Nagy enthusiastically described as a “new vision.”

Britt Salvesen

2024
Selected Bibliography: Salvesen, Britt. See the Light: Photography, Perception, Cognition: the Marjorie and Leonard Vernon Collection. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; New York: DelMonico Books/Prestel, 2013.