[Billboard]
In the late 1920s and early '30s, Ralph Steiner was one of a number of artists, among them Walker Evans and Berenice Abbott, who eschewed geometric abstraction and machine culture for a more documentary, objective rendering of everyday life in New York City. They were interested, for example, in the costume and gait of anonymous pedestrians, the urban forest of billboards and shop windows, and the new car culture. Unlike the gleaming visions of advertising executives, Steiner's billboard reveals itself more as an archaeological dig replete with broken fragments of soaps, condiments, and worn out automobiles.
Artwork Details
- Title: [Billboard]
- Artist: Ralph Steiner (American, Cleveland 1899–1986 Hanover, New Hampshire)
- Date: late 1920s
- Medium: Gelatin silver print
- Dimensions: 19.3 x 24.3 cm (7 5/8 x 9 9/16 in.)
- Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: Purchase, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, Warner Communications Inc. Purchase Fund and The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift through Joyce and Robert Menschel, by exchange, 1999
- Object Number: 1999.37
- Rights and Reproduction: © Ralph Steiner, compliments of Estate
- Curatorial Department: Photographs
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Ralph Steiner
ca. 1920
Ralph Steiner
1920s–30s
Ralph Steiner
ca. 1940
Ralph Steiner
ca. 1922
Ralph Steiner
ca. 1929
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