Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/luigi-veronesi-21554" aria-label="More by Luigi Veronesi" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Luigi Veronesi</a>
Photo n152
Accepted under the Cultural Gifts Scheme by HM Government from Massimo Prelz Oltramonti and allocated to Tate 2015
<p>This is one of a group of five photograms in Tate’s collection by the Italian photographer Luigi Veronesi (Tate P13674–P13678). They are representative of the experimental formal techniques that he focused on throughout his photographic career. <span>Construction </span>1938 (Tate P13674) and <span>Untitled (Spiral) </span>1938 (Tate P13677) are photograms made by arranging objects on photographic paper and then exposing this to light to create the image. The results are abstract studies in pattern and in which lines, dots and spirals make it difficult to decipher the original source of the image. <span>Photo n.145</span> 1940, printed 1970s (Tate P13675),<span> Photo n.152 </span>1940, printed 1970s (Tate P13676) and <span>Kinetic Study </span>1941 (Tate P13678) are, as the title of the latter indicates, studies involving movement in which Veronesi experimented with long exposures and moving either the camera, light source or object to ‘draw’ a shape with light. These works are typical of Veronesi’s experimental approach and the manner in which he applied lessons in abstraction and geometry from other media to photography. As he became involved with modernist sensibilities of the early twentieth-century, particularly the ‘New Vision’ of his friend and Bauhaus member László Moholy-Nagy (1895–1946), Veronesi experimented with line, form and darkroom techniques such as solarisation, micro-photographs and direct or double exposures.</p>
paper print photograph gelatin silver
2 May 2018 – 14 October 2018
2018-10-14
2 May 2018 – 14 October 2018
2018-10-14
2018-05-02
Tate Modern (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/
2018-05-02
Shape of Light: 100 Years of Photography and Abstract Art
Exhibition
8 June 2021 – 14 January 2024
2024-01-14
8 July 2021 – 14 November 2021
2021-11-14
2021-07-08
Museum of Art Pudong (Shanghai, China)
20 December 2021 – 8 May 2022
2022-05-08
2021-12-20
Buk-Seoul Museum of Art (Seoul, South Korea)
15 June 2022 – 13 November 2022
2022-11-13
2022-06-15
ACMI (Melbourne, Australia)
25 February 2023 – 25 June 2023
2023-06-25
2023-02-25
Auckland Art Gallery (Auckland, New Zealand)
12 July 2023 – 2 October 2023
2023-10-02
2023-07-12
National Art Center (Tokyo, Japan)
26 October 2023 – 14 January 2024
2024-01-14
2023-10-26
Nakanoshima Museum of Art (Osaka, Japan)
2021-06-08
Light
Tate partnerships & programmes
Photo n.152
unconfirmed: 320 × 298 mm
Accepted under the Cultural Gifts Scheme by HM Government from Massimo Prelz Oltramonti and allocated to Tate 2015
<div class="text">
<p>This is one of a group of five photograms in Tate’s collection by the Italian photographer Luigi Veronesi (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/veronesi-construction-p13674" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P13674</span></a>–<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/veronesi-kinetic-study-p13678" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P13678</span></a>). They are representative of the experimental formal techniques that he focused on throughout his photographic career. <i>Construction </i>1938 (Tate <span>P13674</span>) and <i>Untitled (Spiral) </i>1938 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/veronesi-untitled-spiral-p13677" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P13677</span></a>) are photograms made by arranging objects on photographic paper and then exposing this to light to create the image. The results are abstract studies in pattern and in which lines, dots and spirals make it difficult to decipher the original source of the image. <i>Photo n.145</i> 1940, printed 1970s (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/veronesi-photo-n-145-p13675" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P13675</span></a>),<i> Photo n.152 </i>1940, printed 1970s (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/veronesi-photo-n-152-p13676" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P13676</span></a>) and <i>Kinetic Study </i>1941 (Tate <span>P13678</span>) are, as the title of the latter indicates, studies involving movement in which Veronesi experimented with long exposures and moving either the camera, light source or object to ‘draw’ a shape with light. These works are typical of Veronesi’s experimental approach and the manner in which he applied lessons in abstraction and geometry from other media to photography. As he became involved with modernist sensibilities of the early twentieth-century, particularly the ‘New Vision’ of his friend and Bauhaus member László Moholy-Nagy (1895–1946), Veronesi experimented with line, form and darkroom techniques such as solarisation, micro-photographs and direct or double exposures. </p>
<p>Veronesi was central to the development of photography in Italy in the inter-war period and immediately following the Second World War. Born in Milan, he became involved in photography following his move to Paris in 1932, where he was able to engage with the work of the international avant-garde from which he had until that point been detached under the Fascist regime in Italy. A prominent figure in many artistic disciplines and especially graphic design and painting, Veronesi was deeply interested in geometry and mathematics and joined the Abstraction-Création group at the invitation of Lucio Fontana (1899–1968) in 1934. Working at the cutting-edge of photographic practice, Veronesi played a central role in the two forums that were key to the distribution and progression of photography in Italy at the time: architecture and design magazines, and photo-clubs. He was a key figure in the production in 1943 of the publication <i>Fotografia </i>which was distributed by the architecture and design almanac <i>Domus</i> (and is now considered to be the most complete statement on modernist photographic practices in Italy during this period). In 1947, together with Giuseppe Cavalli (1904–1961) and others, he formed the photography group La Bussola<i> </i>which sought to distance photography from traditional associations with documentary and reportage, and promote its status as an autonomous art form. The group was considered to be at the avant-garde of formalist practice in Italian photography at the time.</p>
<p>The photographs in Tate’s collection were purchased by Massimo Prelz Oltramonti, one of the foremost collectors of twentieth and twenty-first century Italian photography, from whose collection they have been gifted to Tate.</p>
<p>
<b>Further reading</b>
<br/>Germano Celant (ed.), <i>The Italian Metamorphosis 1943–1968</i>, exhibition catalogue, Guggenheim Museum, New York 1994.<br/>
<i>Viewpoints: Italy in Black and White</i>, exhibition catalogue, The Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London 2005.<br/>
<i>Italian Photography 1930–1970s</i>, exhibition catalogue, Manezh Central Exhibition Centre, Moscow 2007.</p>
<p>Emma Lewis<br/>November 2014</p>
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Summary
2018-08-16T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT