Spiraling Coil

Willy Kessels

1930s · Gelatin silver print · Photographs

Trained as a sculptor, designer, and architectural draftsman, Kessels began making photographs in the mid-1920s. He first achieved recognition as a photographer with his inclusion in the First Photography International at the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, in 1932. Kessels used the photogram process to create an abstract photographic image without a camera by placing objects directly onto photosensitized paper. While the resulting spiraling forms suggest the gears and chains of the machine age, the image also reflects the artistic investigation of pure form and celebrates the new, technologically mediated vision made possible by the photographic arts.

Artist

Willy Kessels

Date

1930s

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

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