Pierre Jahan, L'Herbier surréaliste (Carduus Nutans), 1945-1948

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Gelatin silver print, photogram, burnt edges

40 × 31 cm

Burnt photograph following the fire of the studio on the 6th November 1948. Perhaps Jahan's most surprising series in the photogram technique is the Surrealist Herbarium of 1945. Unlike Man...

Burnt photograph following the fire of the studio on the 6th November 1948.

Perhaps Jahan's most surprising series in the photogram technique is the Surrealist Herbarium of 1945. Unlike Man Ray, Jahan returned to the scientific origins of the photogram: copies of grasses and other plants superimposed on photographs. Unexpectedly, the fire in his flat - and studio - in 1947 completed the works. The photographs in the Herbarium were partially burnt, creating a new plastic dimension of the image. Although the fire was an accident, it does not deny its contribution to Jahan's work - chance always plays a fundamental role in surrealism, after all. It is one of its fundamental elements. With the fire, the Herbarium becomes even more surreal.

Provenance

Studio of the artist, Paris
Fonds Pierre Jahan (through succession)

Exhibitions

Pierre Jahan, À l'ombre des rois, lumières et jeux de la photographie (retrospective), 5 décembre 2014-9 mars 2015, Musée d'Art et d'Histoire de Saint-Denis, France, ill. p. 82-83.

Pierre JAHAN: The Surrealist Herbarium: 1945-1948

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Pierre Jahan French, 1909-2003

Provenance

Exhibitions