Zig-Zag Cigarette Papers

Aram Alban

1929 or later · Gelatin silver print · Photographs

The crisp peaks and sloping planes of these cigarette papers assume a sculptural quality before the photographer’s lens. Magnifying them many times beyond their ordinary scale, Alban accords the disposable papers an illusory permanence, invoking the lasting power one might seek in a well-rolled cigarette. The peripatetic photographer, who operated successive studios in Alexandria, Brussels, Paris, and Cairo, closely followed the formal inventions of avant-garde photography, progressively introducing them to his own commercial practice. Here adapting a spare and geometric modernist idiom for advertising, he arranges his composition for the French firm Zig-Zag with a nod to the company name.

Artist

Aram Alban

Date

1929 or later

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

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