The Perfect Bourgeois

Tato

1930 · Gelatin silver print · Photographs

Tato was a leader of the second wave of Italian Futurism and co-author with F. T. Marinetti of the Futurist Manifesto of Photography (1930). A pioneering figure of the New Vision in Italy, Tato proposed “camouflaging of objects”—having light and shadow transform ordinary shapes into anthropomorphic figures. Blending montage and Surrealist techniques, this witty photograph suggests an alternate reality in which inanimate objects are imbued with secret lives and the “perfect bourgeois” gentleman becomes a literal stuffed shirt.

Artist

Tato

Date

1930

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, 1987