Paul Outerbridge was a pioneer of color photography, whose unprecedented pictures transformed expectations about color’s role in photographic art. This extraordinary exhibition features a selection of rare and famous images from the mid- 1930s, when Outerbridge burst on the scene with his new, magnetic and utterly original approach to the medium.

In the early 1920s, Outerbridge was known as one of the brightest rising stars in black-and-white art and commercial photography. A dapper young graduate from the famed Clarence White School, he dazzled New York with Precisionist still lifes and sensuous nudes, marked by compositional elegance and exquisitely layered space. In 1925, he moved

to Paris where he was introduced to the art scene by fellow Americans, Man Ray and Lee Miller, along with Ray’s former lover, Kiki de Montparnasse. He befriended some of the most influential artists and thinkers of the day, including Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia, Georges Braque, Igor Stravinsky, Pablo Picasso, and other figures who embraced him as one of their own. Returning to the United States four years later, he spent the Great Depression in virtual retreat, perfecting the new, and technically challenging, color photography.

By the mid-1930s Outerbridge had completely reinvented himself as a color photographer. Combining unparalleled technical excellence with Paris Surrealist influence, he produced some of the most memorable photographs of his time. In this new phase, female nudes were presented not
as passive recipients of the male gaze, but as strong and independent women asserting and in charge of their own sensuality. Outerbridge also became interested in pop culture, exploring conventions of advertising photography even as he subverted them.

Drawn from the Paul Outerbridge Estate Collection, Luminous presents works never before seen, remastered from the original negatives. It engages with educational themes, including Surrealist influence in art, photographic technique and the optics of color, as well as photographic and Modern art history.

WORKS
45 photographs

DIMENSIONS
22 × 16 ins (55 x 40 cm)
to 20 × 30 ins (50 x 76 cm)

SPACE REQUIREMENTS
225 linear feet (70 linear meters)

EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMMING
Curators available for lectures and panel discussions.

EXHIBITOR RESOURCES
Illustrated catalogue is planned

INQUIRIES
exhibitions@curatorial.org | 626.577.0044

FEE
Please inquire.