PAUL OUTERBRIDGE
The Piano, 1926
© 2018 Estate of Paul Outerbridge, Jr. / Courtesy Kicken Berlin
Biography
After studying at the Clarence F. White School of Photography in 1921, Paul Outerbridge (American, 1896-1958) became one of the leading object and commercial photographers of his time, working for such publications as Vanity Fair, Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. In 1925 he moved to Paris where he operated a portrait studio and came into contact with Constantin Brancusi, Salvador Dalí, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, and Berenice Abbott. After a brief stay in Berlin in 1928 and a showing of his work at Stuttgart’s Film und Foto exhibition, Outerbridge moved back to the USA in 1929. Around 1930 he started experimenting with color photography and perfecting the carbro print process. Both his commercial photography and his staged nude portraits are heavily influenced by Surrealism and Abstraction.
