Josef Breitenbach

Working in Paris from 1934 to 1939, Joseph Breitenbach created photographs that document the rich arts scene of the French capital on the eve of the Second World War. In this view of a large studio in a sculpture academy, a nude male model poses while a female sculptor in the foreground fashions a small clay likeness. Breitenbach’s attention to this space may be more than documentary: it has been suggested that he found the sculpture studio a provocative photographic subject owing to the presence of the large, ghostly figures. Swathed in drapery (to keep the clay moist), these statues recall the uncanny motifs found in the work of Man Ray, Max Ernst, and other Surrealists with whom the photographer mingled during those years.