Saturday, August 24, 2024

Levitt - Klippel - Klucis - Kempf

Helen Levitt
Coney Island
ca. 1940
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Helen Levitt
New York
ca. 1942
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Helen Levitt
New York
1972
dye transfer print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Helen Levitt
New York
1972
dye transfer print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Robert Klippel
Mechanical Form
1972
gouache, ink and collage on paper
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Robert Klippel
Mechanical Form
1972
gouache, ink and collage on paper
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Robert Klippel
Drawing
1960
cut and printed paper collage
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Robert Klippel
Organic Machine with Suspended Shape
in Electro-Magnetic Field

1949
drawing
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Gustavs Klucis
Constructivist Design for Work Uniform
1922
linocut
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Gustavs Klucis
Constructivist Tower
ca. 1921-22
linocut
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Gustavs Klucis
Karl Marx
1930
photomontage
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Gustavs Klucis
Radio Orator: Design for Loudspeakers Stand
1923
lithograph
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Franz Kempf
Icon I
1969
lithograph
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Franz Kempf
Exhibition of Drawings and Prints
1963 
screenprint (poster)
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Franz Kempf
Die Bremen Stadtmusikanten
1968
oil on canvas
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide

Franz Kempf
Still Life
1964
screenprint
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

from A Voyage

                      IV. Hong Kong

Its leading characters are wise and witty,
Their suits well-tailored, and they wear them well,
Have many a polished parable to tell
About the mores of a trading city.

Only the servants enter unexpected,
Their silent movements make dramatic news;
Here in the East our bankers have erected
A worthy temple to the Comic Muse.

Ten thousand miles from home and What's-Her-Name
A bugle on this Late Victorian hill
Puts out the soldier's lights; off-stage, a war

Thuds like the slamming a distant door:
Each has his comic role in life to fill,
Though Life be neither comic nor a game.

– W.H. Auden (1938)