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  Thomas F. Barrow, Ready Made, Gelatin silver print photogram with applied spray paint, 1978

  THOMAS F. BARROW (b. 1938) Kansas City, MO

  Ready Made Photogram 1978

  Gelatin silver print photogram with applied spray paint

  Signed: Ready Made – 1978 – Thomas F. Barrow (in ink on back)

  Exhibited: J.J. Brookings & Co. (San Jose, CA): Thomas F. Barrow: Inventories and Transformations, A Twenty Year Retrospective, Nov. 6 – Dec. 16, 1986. This exhibit occurred simultaneously with the following two museum shows: the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (Nov. 6 – Jan 11, 1987) and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Feb. 26 – May 10, 1987).
  Related photograph illustrated: Aperture: The New Vision: Forty Years of Photography, no. 87 (New York: Aperture Foundation, Inc., 1987), cover image.

  Framed size: H: 19 5/8” x W: 23 7/16”

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  Allen Porter, Filmstrips, Photogram vintage gelatin silver print 1947

  ALLEN PORTER (b.1926) USA

  Filmstrips 1947

  Photogram vintage gelatin silver print

  Size: (unframed): H: 11” x W: 14”
  Size: (frame): H: 20” x W: 23”

  After attending art programs at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, Porter enrolled at the ID upon his return from military service in WWII. His course of study included graphic design and photography. His photograms were produced while working with famed ID photography instructors Frank Levstik and Ferenc Berko. Shortly after leaving the ID in 1949, Porter established a design office in Los Angeles during the height of the California modern design movement. He incorporated his innovative light work into design projects for important clients like Gruen Lighting and Carroll Sagar & Associates.

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  Carlotta Corpron, Light Cubes, Gelatin silver print c. 1947

  CARLOTTA CORPRON (1901-1988) USA

  Light Cubes c. 1947

  Silver gelatin print, patinated steel frame

  Signed: Carlotta M. Corpron, Denton, Texas, RM6 #1081.47 (stamped on back)

  Framed size: H: 13 ¾” x W: 16 ¾”

  Price: $40,000

  Corpron became a teacher at Texas Woman’s University in 1935 and in 1942 she led a light workshop at Texas Woman’s University for photographer Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. Although he praised her rapport with her students, Moholy-Nagy did not encourage Corpron’s independent photography. More influential on her work was the arrival of Gyorgy Kepes, who came to Denton to write a book in 1944. His interest in Corpron’s work prompted her to produce several series of photographs that were the most original of her career. At his suggestion Corpron experimented by placing white paper cut in simple shapes within a perforated box that was open at one end. When flashlights were shined through the holes onto the paper shapes, interesting patterns of light and shadow were reflected. The resulting abstract photographs comprised Corpron’s “Light Patterns” series.

  In her “Light Follows Form” series she extended her exploration of the modeling properties of light to three-dimensional form. In this series, she used light filtered through Venetian blinds or glass to dramatize a plaster cast of a Greek head. She also experimented with solarization, a process in which already exposed negatives are exposed. Works such as Solarized Calla Lilies (1948) convey a surreal elegance, but Corpron favored more original methods of expression. She regarded her “Space Compositions” and “Fluid Light Designs” series as her best work. In the former she used still-lifes composed of eggs, nautilus shells, or glass paperweights, usually combined with a curving reflective surface, to produce an illusion of receding three-dimensional space. She emphasized distortions of form that occurred in her egg photographs by experimentation during the development process. Her work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Art Institute of Chicago, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Dallas Museum of Art, and the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth.

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  Donald Deskey, Barrels, Gelatin silver print, c.1925-30

  DONALD DESKEY (1894-1989) USA

  Barrels c.1925-30

  Silver gelatin print, ebonized textured wood frame

  Provenance: The Estate of Donald Deskey

  H: 9 7/8” x W: 7 15/16”
  Framed: H: 22” x W: 18”

  Price: $4,200

  Donald Deskey was a native of Blue Earth, Minnesota. He studied architecture at the University of California, but did not follow that profession, becoming instead an artist and a pioneer in the field of Industrial design. In Paris he attended the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, which influenced his approach to design. He established a design consulting firm in New York City, and later the firm of Deskey-Vollmer (in partnership with Phillip Vollmer) which specialized in furniture and textile design. His designs in this era progressed from Art Deco to Streamline Moderne.

  He first gained note as a designer when he created window displays for the Franklin Simon Department Store in Manhattan in 1926. In the 1930's, he won the competition to design the interiors for Radio City Music Hall. In the 1940's he started the graphic design firm Donald Deskey Associates and made some of the most recognizable icons of the day. He designed the Crest toothpaste packaging, as well as the Tide bullseye. His company is still in operation in Cincinnati. A collection of his work is held by the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. He is regarded the American pioneer of industrial design, and contemporary American graphic design.