Product Description
Dong or Meow People / Spiral silver counterweight 20th Century

DONG OR MEOW PEOPLE Southern China
Spiral counterweight early 20th century
Handwrought silver (Dutch coin silver) with custom stand
H: 10 ¼” x W: 5 1/4” x D: 2 ¾” (dimensions on stand)
These beautifully dynamic spiral objects were worn on the back to support a ceremonial apron worn across the front.
Dong or Meow People / Spiral silver counterweight 20th Century
THOMAS F. BARROW (b. 1938) Kansas City, MO
Register Synthesis Photogram 1978
Gelatin silver print photogram with applied spray paint
Signed: Register Synthesis – 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, 1986 – 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”
Thomas Barrow, American was born in Kansas City, Missouri. He studied at the Art Institute of Design in Chicago, Illinois and received his M.A. in 1967. At the George Eastman House, Barrow was the Assistant Director from 1971 to 1972 and served as the Associate Director of the University of New Mexico Art Museum from 1973 to 1976. Barrow started teaching photography in 1976 in the Art Department of the University of New Mexico and by 1985 he became the Acting Director of the University Art Museum. His Midwestern academic pedigree includes studying with Aaron Siskind at the Art Institute of Design in Chicago and with filmmaker Jack Ellis at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. Barrow has received two NEA Photographers Fellowships in 1973 and 1978.
Barrow has produced a series of silver-gelatin photograms and then applied spray paint to the prints. These combine the feeling of a split-toned black and white print and at the same time appear as color-print photograms. He has produced a series of photograms entitled Disjunctive Forms. His images appear as surreal assemblages of various found and created objects superimposed with stencil text. Barrow works in the “academic” tradition—his pictures are deliberately and consistently experimental, highly intellectualized, scholarly in their concerns, and chock-full of references to the work of other artists.
JOHN GUTMANN (1905-1998) USA
D.O.S. Apology 1938
Signed: 290.6, M 3 (in a circle), 5, © John Gutmann, SP, D.O.S. Apology 1938 (all in pencil on back of photo)
Framed size: H: 12 1/8“ x W: 14 3/8”
John Gutmann was a German-born American photographer and painter. After fleeing Nazi Germany to the United States, Gutmann acquired a job as a photographer for various German magazines. Gutmann quickly took an interest in the American way of life and sought to capture it through the lense of his camera. He especially took an interest in the Jazz music scene. Gutmann is recognized for his unique “worm’s-eye view” camera angle. He enjoyed taking photos of ordinary things and making them seem special.His work was shown in important galleries such as Castelli’s in NYC, Fraenkel in San Francisco, and the Centre National de la Photographie in Paris. After his death, Gutmann’s oeuvre was given to the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona.
GYÖRGY KEPES (1906-2001) Hungary/USA
Abstraction 1942
Silver gelatin print
Signed: 9 (in a circle, on back); Gyorgy Kepes 1942 (in ink on back)
György Kepes was a Hungarian-born painter, designer, educator and art theorist. After emigrating to the U.S. in 1937, he taught design at the New Bauhaus (later the School of Design, then Institute of Design, then Illinois Institute of Design or IIT) in Chicago. In 1947 He founded the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he taught until his retirement in 1974.
Framed size: H: 29 3/16” x W: 25 ¼”
GYÖRGY KEPES (1906-2001) Hungary/USA
Abstraction 1942
Silver gelatin print
Signed: Gyorgy Kepes 1942 (in ink on back)
Framed size: H: 18 13/16” x W: 16”
György Kepes was a Hungarian-born painter, designer, educator and art theorist. After emigrating to the U.S. in 1937, he taught design at the New Bauhaus (later the School of Design, then Institute of Design, then Illinois Institute of Design or IIT) in Chicago. In 1947 He founded the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he taught until his retirement in 1974.