Drahomir Josef Ružicka
Boj o život

ArtistAmerican, born Bohemia, 1870–1960
CultureAmerican
Titles
  • Boj o život
  • The Struggle for Life
Date1918
PlaceCalifornia, United States
MediumGelatin silver print
DimensionsImage: 10 9/16 × 13 1/2 in. (26.8 × 34.3 cm)
Sheet: 10 9/16 × 13 1/2 in. (26.8 × 34.3 cm)
Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by Louisa Stude Sarofim in honor of Wendy Watriss and Fred Baldwin
Object number91.241
Non exposé

Explore Further

Department
Photography
Object Type
Description


An immigrant from Bohemia, Drahomír Josef Ružicka lived and worked in New York and was a founding member of the Pictorial Photographers of America. He spent much of the 1910s photographing the green spaces of the city. Interested in the natural world, Ružicka found metaphoric potential in these dramatic twisting branches, and the resulting image demonstrates his technical finesse and attuned sense of light and shadow. In the 1920s, Ružicka returned to his native Czech lands bringing Pictorialist publications and ideas to the Czech photography scene. He was a key interlocutor in the international exchange of Pictorialist aesthetics and techniques. 









Provenance[Kicken-Pauseback Gallery, Cologne, Germany]; purchased by MFAH, 1991.
Exhibition HistoryExhibited: "A Love Affair with Pictures: 25 Years of Collecting Photographs at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston," MFAH, Lower Jones and Masterson Galleries, October 14 - December 30, 2001.

Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Inscribed in pencil, verso, top: A- // The Struggle for Life // California 1918 // [initials] Ruzicka // New York
Inscribed in pencil, left edge, horizontal: [illegible with arrows pointing vertically]
Inscribed in red pencil, verso, center: 484 [circled]
Inscribed in pencil, verso, center: 31 // 48 [circled]
Inscribed in pencil and stamped, verso, center: 9700002 -48
Inscribed in pencil, verso, lower center: [illegible with arrows pointing horizontally]
Inscribed in pencil, verso, bottom center: 15
Printed in black on applied sticker, verso, bottom right horizontal: 246
Inscribed in pencil, verso, bottom right edge: P8803 059

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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