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Ferris Wheel, Vienna
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? Photograph by Edith Tudor Hart

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Ferris Wheel, Vienna about 1931 (negative)
Before marrying Edith Tudor Hart had studied photography at the Bauhaus in Dessau. The concerns of this school are obvious in the geometries and startling perspective of this image. Note the exaggerated size of the steel supports of the wheel and the minute figures of the people standing on the ground. The photographer's eagerness to document the dynamism of urban life suggests she was aware of developments in Soviet avant-garde photography.

Glossary Open

Avant garde

Cultural practices that challenge tradition through experimentation and innovation. Originally a military term, in art it is particularly associated with the late 19th and 20th centuries.

Bauhaus

An influential German school of art and design founded in Dessau in 1919 under the architect Walter Gropius. It was based on workshop training rather than academic studios, and is celebrated for its functional design. The school moved to Dessau in 1926, housed in a famous building designed by Gropius. It later moved to Berlin before closing in 1933 due to pressure from the Nazis.

Perspective

The principle of representing depth on a flat surface so that items further away from the eye appear smaller and parallel lines appear to converge.

Avant garde, Bauhaus, Perspective

Details

  • Acc. No. PGP 279.1
  • Medium Modern silver gelatine print from archival negative
  • Size 29.30 x 29.20 cm
  • Credit Presented by Wolfgang Suschitzky 2001

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