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Between and Mortarboard

UMMA Object Specific Fields




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31 Items in this Learning Collection
Portrait of a Man
This photograph depicts a the top half of a suited man sitting before a painted backdrop of a sky. The image is hand-tinted in light colors and is set in a gilt frame inside an ornate leather-bound case.
Collection Object
Eagle
Two nearly identical daguerreotypes are pictured one on top of the other. They both portray an eagle perched on a tree’s branch. The artist’s signature is typed in red lettering and arched upwards on the bottom center.<br />
Collection Object
Photograph Book

Collection Object
Untitled
A sepia-toned image of two children and a larger, seated figure draped in a blanket. The smaller child is an infant that sits in the lap of the seated figure and the larger child stands to the infant's right with an arm on the seated figure's leg. 
Collection Object
Portrait of a Young Woman

Collection Object
The Open Door

Collection Object
Westminster Abbey
A square, brown-tinted image of the front of a stone cathedral. It has a central door and symmetrical pair of lancet windows. The top of the building is cropped out of the frame.
Collection Object
Equisetum Sylvaticum
This cyanotype photograph displays the silhouettes of six plant stems laid out in a row.
Collection Object
Thomas Leverton Donaldson
This photographic negative depicts an older man seated in an interior. His head is turned to the side and he wears a three-piece suit.
Collection Object
Blackfriar's Chapel from the Northwest

Collection Object
Engineering Corps
A group of soldiers stand and sit in a landscape; some face the camera while others are posed engaged in conversation. Behind them stand several tall trees and between them a tent with the flaps decorated with an American flag. Seated alone to the left is a young African-American man holding a broom.
Collection Object
Thomas Leverton Donaldson
This photograph is a portrait of a seated man in a three piece suit. He holds an eye-glass in his right hand. 
Collection Object
The City of Ambition
Photograph of the Singer Building in New York, located at Broadway and Liberty. Open to the public in 1908, it was the tallest building in America for one year. In 1968 it was the world's largest skyscaper to be demolished.
Collection Object
Torso
This photograph depicts the torso and head of a nude woman. She holds her arm above her head and faces toward the left side of the frame.
Collection Object
The Rose
This image is an unusually-formatted vertical and very narrow portrait of a young woman. The woman wears a long silk gown and holds a rose. 
Collection Object
School Children
A group of children stand tightly packed together behind a wooden fence. None of the children appear to be facing the camera except for one girl in a gingham dress at the center of the photo. This girl, slightly smiling, displays the cover of a book she holds in her hand.
Collection Object
New York City (man with cap, door on right)
A black and white photograph of a man, face half-shadowed, looking to the viewer&#39;s right. He wears a cap and loosely done collard shirt. A street food sign appears on the left.
Collection Object
Lucille Burroughs, Daughter of a Cotton Sharecropper
The photograph is a portrait of a girl in a straw hat standing in front of a wooden fence.
Collection Object
Sidewalk Scene, Selma, Alabama
View of a storefront with people sitting in front on benches and entering the shop through a doorway.
Collection Object
Movie and Minstrel Show Posters on Brick Wall, Demopolis, Alabama
This is a photograph of the side of a building with two posters advertising a movie and circus.
Collection Object
Rue St. Rustique, Monmartre
View of a passageway in Paris.
Collection Object
Masque Antique
Antique mask with carved curly hair and an open mouth.
Collection Object
Bar de Cabaret
Photograph of the interior of a bar with a mirror and staircase behind.
Collection Object
Transmutations
A linen covered, velvet lined, clamshell folio, with gilt lettering on the spine and Arches Aquarelle Satin Rives paper for Brassaï's <em>Transmutations</em> portfolio.
Collection Object
Untitled (4)
Four people donning costumes and masks standing in the foreground of a large grassy field.&nbsp;
Collection Object
Two Callas
A photograph of two flowers side-by-side; their swirling forms disappear into the black background.
Collection Object
Agave Design 1
A photograph of an agave plant. The plant is framed so that its straight leaves align with the architectural features of the background.
Collection Object
Man Climbing Ladder, Plate III
This photograph is divided in a grid of two rows, each made up of eleven vertical images. In each of these frames, a naked man is shown climbing the rungs of a ladder. Each frame depicts the movement of his body as he makes his ascent.
Collection Object
The Man from Papantla

Collection Object
From the Radio Tower, Berlin
Photograph looking straight down onto a built landscape.
Collection Object
Mrs. Herbert Duckworth

Collection Object

Copyright
No copyright restrictions ()

Transmutations

Accession Number
1971/2.150.13

Title
Transmutations

Artist(s)
Brassaï

Artist Nationality
French (culture or style)

Object Creation Date
1934-1935; printed 1967

Medium & Support
gelatin silver prints on paper, in portfolio

Dimensions
15 in x 11 1/4 in (38.1 cm x 28.58 cm)

Credit Line
Museum Purchase

Subject matter
In 1932, after Brassaï left one of his glass plate negatives in Pablo Picasso's studio, Picasso drew directly onto Brassaï's negative. Picasso's action inspired the photographer to make marks on his own negatives, often scratching away the photographic image already exposed on the glass plates. He transformed photographs of female nudes with lines to produce intricate patterns, musical instruments, and new forms. Brassaï re-worked about 150 negatives from 1934-1935 and then published twelve images as the portfolio Transmutations in 1967. The title references the process of mutating the human body through the cliché-verre process. Brassaï described photography as his raw material, the point of departure for his transmutations, where realism gave way to fantasy.

Physical Description
A linen covered, velvet lined, clamshell folio, with gilt lettering on the spine and Arches Aquarelle Satin Rives paper for Brassaï's Transmutations portfolio.

Primary Object Classification
Photograph

Collection Area
Photography

Rights
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please visit http://umma.umich.edu/request-image for more information and to fill out the online Image Rights and Reproductions Request Form.

Keywords
Abstract (fine arts style)
Surrealist
cliché-verre (photographic process)
clichés-verre (negatives)
clichés-verre (photographic prints)
female
musical instruments
nudes (representations)

2 Related Resources
Art of interest to Judaic Studies
(Part of 3 Learning Collections)
Surreal Photography
(Part of 2 Learning Collections)

& Author Notes

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