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KARL STRUSS (American, 1886-1981) UNTITLED signed and dated “Karl Struss 1911” in pencil in the l...
Currency:USD
Category:Everything Else / Other
Start Price:NA
Estimated At:10,000.00 - 15,000.00 USD
NOT SOLD (BIDDING OVER)
0.00USD+ applicable fees & taxes.
This item WAS NOT SOLD. Auction date was 2003 Oct 17 @ 18:00UTC-5 : EST/CDT
KARL STRUSS
(American, 1886-1981)
UNTITLED
signed and dated “Karl Struss 1911”
in pencil in the lower left corner of image
platinum print mounted on board,
mounted on paper
33?4 x 45?8 in. (9.5 x 11.7 cm)
board mount: 4 x 53?16 in. (10.2 x 13.2 cm)
paper mount: 113?4 x 81?16 in. (29.8 x 20.5 cm)
1911
ESTIMATE: $10,000-15,000
PROVENANCE
Warren Coville Collection, MICHIGAN
James Danziger Gallery, NEW YORK
Private Collection
Karl Struss proclaimed that he took up photography in “self-defense” against ten-hour days working in his father’s bonnet-wire factory in Manhattan. Displaying an innovative, technical-minded nature early on, young Struss noticed a consistently erratic spool in the factory’s production equipment and promptly invented a better version. By age 22, he invented his own single element camera lens that produced a rich image of three-dimensional quality. His “Struss Pictorial Lens” later gained a wide following and was said to have been the first soft-focus lens used in motion pictures.
After a bright early career in New York as a still photographer (with a selection of prints published in Camera Work when he was only 25), Struss contributed to the war effort doing secret work abroad in infrared photography. He arrived in Hollywood immediately after his discharge in 1919 and soon became a cinematographer. Struss was one of the few significant professional still photographers to make the transition to full-length commercial films at the time—his softly-contoured, rich style contrasted with the harsher, sharp images dominant in pre-1920s film and became influential in forging a new visual motion picture style in the 1920s.
These three photographs demonstrate the muted contours and soft focus that characterize Struss’s early photographs. Here Struss captures the recognizable architectural reality of New York while simultaneously transforming it into a dreamlike realm. Through framing, composition and soft focus, he achieves the effect of an almost-magical city beyond the everyday New York without actually venturing into the surreal.
Auction Location:
United States
Previewing Details:
Friday Oct 10 - Wednesday Oct 15
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