Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/horacio-coppola-15617" aria-label="More by Horacio Coppola" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Horacio Coppola</a>
Egg and Twine
Presented by Michael Hoppen Gallery 2011
animals: features
egg
emotions, concepts and ideas
formal qualities
objects
photographic
string
tools and machinery
<p>An experimental photographic study in form, materiality and contrast, <span>Egg and Twine</span> shows a white egg alongside a twisted piece of white string. These two bright objects sit against a dark background of what appear to be wooden floorboards. The study likely dates from the Argentinian Coppola’s time studying at the Bauhaus Photography Department in Berlin, Germany, from 1932–3, under the German photographer Walter Peterhan.</p><p><em>Gallery label, January 2022</em></p>
paper print photograph gelatin silver
5 May 2012 – 28 July 2013
2013-07-28
5 May 2012 – 28 July 2013
2013-07-28
2012-05-05
Tate Modern (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/
2012-05-05
Modernist Photography
Collection based display
14 October 2014 – 10 May 2015
2015-05-10
14 October 2014 – 10 May 2015
2015-05-10
2014-10-14
Tate St Ives (St Ives, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/stives/
2014-10-14
The Modern Lens: International Photography and the Tate Collection
Exhibition
Egg and Twine
image: 235 × 282 mm
Presented by Michael Hoppen Gallery 2011
<div class="text">
<p>
<i>Egg and Twine</i> is a black and white photograph taken in 1932 by the Argentine artist Horacio Coppola. An experimental study in form and contrast, it shows a white egg alongside a twisted piece of white string against a dark background of what appear to be wooden floorboards. The study is likely to have been a student exercise made during Coppola’s time studying at the Bauhaus Photography Department in Berlin, since it is inscribed ‘Berlin’ and dated 1932 on the reverse (the year the Bauhaus moved to the city). It also corresponds to similar studies made by other students which also feature an egg and twine subject. This print, which was made at a later date, has been signed by the artist on the reverse.</p>
<p>Coppola began taking photographs in 1926 in his home town of Buenos Aires guided by his brother Armando, who was a skilled amateur. He made similar studies of abstract and semi-abstracted form both before leaving Buenos Aires for Europe and after his arrival there. His earlier studies exhibit a formal and stylistic relationship with the aesthetics of Ultraism, a radical Spanish literary movement which established itself in 1918 and was taken up in Argentina as the basis for a more broadly based visual and literary avant-garde. This work dates from the formative years of Coppola’s career and shows him experimenting with his medium and with avant-garde ideas that were current in the early years of the century.</p>
<p>Such works indicate important aspects of early modernist photographic practice, and also help to trace the trajectory of Coppola’s career and development, as well as the wider exchange of modernist ideas and principles between the Americas and Europe in the early twentieth century. In 1930 Coppola had embarked on a study tour of Europe, not long afterwards publishing his photographs back in Buenos Aires in the magazine <i>Sur</i> (nos.4 and 5), where the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges was on the editorial board. In Europe, Coppola studied at the Bauhaus in Berlin in 1932–3 under the German photographer Walter Peterhans. While at the Bauhaus he also met the German photographer Grete Stern. They married in the 1930s and set up a studio together in Buenos Aires in 1937. Coppola and Stern’s return to Argentina was an important instance of the transmission of avant-garde modernist ideas and practices from one continent to another.</p>
<p>Coppola is represented in Tate’s collection by a number of other works, including <i>Hampstead Heath, London</i> 1934 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/coppola-hampstead-heath-london-p80303" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P80303</span></a>), <i>London </i>1934 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/coppola-london-p80307" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P80307</span></a>) and <i>The Drink for You… </i>1934 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/coppola-the-drink-for-you-p80305" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P80305</span></a>).</p>
<p>
<b>Further reading</b>
<br/>
<i>Horacio Coppola</i>, Michael Hoppen Gallery, exhibition catalogue, London 2001.</p>
<p>Tanya Barson<br/>May 2011</p>
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Summary
2018-02-01T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<div class="text">
<p>An experimental photographic study in form, materiality and contrast, <i>Egg and Twine</i> shows a white egg alongside a twisted piece of white string. These two bright objects sit against a dark background of what appear to be wooden floorboards. The study likely dates from the Argentinian Coppola’s time studying at the Bauhaus Photography Department in Berlin, Germany, from 1932–3, under the German photographer Walter Peterhan. </p>
</div>

Display caption
2022-01-14T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
animals: features egg emotions, concepts and ideas formal qualities objects photographic string tools and machinery