The Composition

Frantisek Drtikol

1927 · Carbon print · Photographs

There are no accidents in a Drtikol photograph. In his constructed studio environments, women and objects are equated and painstakingly arranged. Indifferent to realism, he insisted that "the image must be complete in the photographer’s head a long time before it is reflected in the viewfinder." By the 1920s, this was an alienating position, increasingly out of step with modernist imperatives to reenvision the world through one’s lens. Yet Drtikol doubled down, eventually replacing live models with cutout pictures of women—even easier to contort than the gymnasts he had often hired. Here, exercising absolute control over an airtight realm, he orchestrates equilibrium between set pieces, inanimate and otherwise.

Artist

Frantisek Drtikol

Date

1927

Medium

Carbon print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

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