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'MARMON CRANKSHAFT'

measurements note
4 1/2 by 3 3/8 in. (11.4 by 8.6 cm.)

mounted, signed and dated by the photographer in pencil on the mount, credited, titled, and inscribed with the photographer's '49 West 74th Street, New York City' studio address, annotated 'London,' and numbered in unidentified hands in ink and pencil on the reverse, matted, 1923

PROVENANCE

The Estate of Paul Outerbridge, Jr.

Acquired by G. Ray Hawkins Gallery, Los Angeles, from the above

Private Collection, New Jersey

Carlton Gallery, New York

Acquired by Mark Kelman from the above, 1978

Acquired by the Gilman Paper Company from the above, 1978

EXHIBITED

Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey, Precisionism in America 1915-1941: Reordering Reality, November 1994 - January 1995; and traveling to:

West Palm Beach, Norton Gallery of Art, February - April 1995

Columbus, Ohio, Museum of Art, May - July 1995

Lincoln, Nebraska, Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, September - November 1995

LITERATURE

Other prints of this image:

Precisionism in America 1915-1941: Reordering Reality (New Jersey: Montclair Art Museum, 1994), pl. 48

David Travis, Photographs from The Julien Levy Collection, Starting with Atget (The Art Institute of Chicago, 1976), p. 85

Maria Morris Hambourg and Christopher Phillips, The New Vision: Photography Between the World Wars, Ford Motor Company Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1989, in conjunction with the exhibition), pl. 14

Elaine Dines and Graham Howe, Paul Outerbridge: A Singular Aesthetic (Laguna Beach Museum of Art, 1981), fig. 16 and pl. 21

Robert Glenn Ketchum and Graham Howe, Outerbridge (The Los Angeles Center for Photographic Studies, 1976), p. 31, fig. 1

Graham Howe and G. Ray Hawkins, Paul Outerbridge Jr.: Photographs (New York, 1980), p. 39

Manfred Heiting, ed., Paul Outerbridge, 1896-1958 (Köln, 1999), p. 47

Barbara Haskell, The American Century: Art and Culture, 1900-1950 (Whitney Museum of American Art, 1999, in conjunction with the exhibition), pl. 297

Hans Rooseboom and Mattie Boom, Still Lifes and Portraits, Photographs from the Manfred Heiting Collection (Amsterdam, 2001), p. 92

Karen Tsujimoto, Images of America: Precisionist Painting and Modern Photography (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1982, in conjunction with the exhibition), pl. 47

NOTE

Paul Outerbridge was one of the most imaginative and technically-innovative photographers of his day. Like his contemporary, Edward Steichen, Outerbridge was able to successfully adapt high-art ideas to his commercial work, and in Marmon Crankshaft we see elements of Cubism and abstraction, as well as the nascent Neue Sachlichkeit movement. Outerbridge was an expert photographic craftsman, having mastered the difficult platinum print process and, later, pioneering new methods of making color prints. His considerable artistic and technical talents are evident in the mounted, fully-signed platinum print of Marmon Crankshaft offered here.

Outerbridge made Marmon Crankshaft relatively early in his career, in 1923. In 1921, he had studied at the Clarence White School in New York, where he was inspired to embark upon a series of still-life studies in which he honed his lighting skills and his ability to create interesting, novel compositions with quotidian subject matter (cf. Howe, pps. 38, 40, 42, 43, 45 and 46). In 1922, Outerbridge received his first commercial assignment, for which he produced his iconic Ide Collar (Howe, p. 35). This image, published in the July 1922 issue of Vanity Fair, redefined the role of photography in advertising, where straightforward, descriptive images of merchandise had been the norm. Having made a successful departure from conventional commercial photography, Outerbridge continually refined his craft and his distinctive style.

The image offered here was created by Outerbridge for the Marmon Automobile Company. Founded in 1902 by mechanical engineer Howard Marmon, the company became one of the top names in the young automotive industry. Marmon cars were characterized by ambitious mechanical engineering and elegant design. The Marmon Wasp won the Indianapolis 500 in 1911, and, in 1916, a team of drivers in the Marmon 34 broke the transcontinental record by driving cross-country in under 6 days. The company's signature car was the Marmon 16 Sedan, featuring a powerful state-of-the-art V-16 motor. The company ceased its operations in 1933, a victim of the Depression. Marmon cars were produced in relatively small quantities, and are now prized by collectors of antique automobilia.

The subject of Outerbridge's photograph is the crankshaft of a Marmon engine. The crankshaft is one of the most essential functional elements of the engine, and transforms reciprocal motion (the up and down firing of the pistons) into rotary motion (the turning of the transmission and eventually the wheels). While the standard advertising approach would have been to photograph the entire automobile, Outerbridge took the unprecedented step of focusing instead on the very heart of the engine. In Outerbridge's clever composition, the crankshaft's smooth metal form is deftly lit, making it seem almost monumental. Set against an abstracted background of bands of gray, the object defies a sense of scale. Like Ide Collar, Marmon Crankshaft simultaneously abstracts and celebrates its subject matter.

Even though the First World War made platinum scarce, Outerbridge felt strongly that his photographs were most successfully printed on platinum paper. For this reason, he printed even the best of his images in very limited quantities. Aside from the print offered here, there are three prints of Marmon Crankshaft in institutional collections: The Metropolitan Museum of Art (a gift of Outerbridge himself in 1929), the Ford Motor Company Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Julien Levy Collection at the Art Institute of Chicago. Another print is reproduced in Still Lifes and Portraits, Photographs from the Manfred Heiting Collection (Amsterdam, 2001, p. 92). Two prints of this image have appeared at auction, one in these rooms on 17 April 1991 (Sale 6160, Lot 142), and one at Christie's, New York on 6 October 1998 (Sale 8982, Lot 266).