- Advertisement for George P. Ide & Company
Sheet: 5 × 4 in. (12.7 × 10.2 cm)
Mount: 5 × 4 in. (12.7 × 10.2 cm)
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As one of the most important fashion and advertising photographers of the 1920s and 1930s, Paul Outerbridge often reduced objects to their essential forms. The resulting images are refined, abstract compositions akin to early Modernist experiments. Of the numerous influential ad photographs taken by Outerbridge, Advertisement for George P. Ide Company remains his most famous.
With his fierce attention to tone, lighting, and composition, Outerbridge managed to elevate this advertisement for Ide shirt collars from a simple sales solicitation to a stylized still life. The crisp contrast of the curved form of the collar against the checkered tile presents the product with an elegance that speaks to both high fashion and art. The MFAH owns the only known 8" x 10" version of this image printed in gelatin silver, as well as this 4" x 5" version printed in platinum, as typically preferred by the artist.
Provenance[G. Ray Hawkins Gallery, Beverly Hills, California]; purchased by MFAH, 1976.
Exhibition History"Evocative Presence: Twentieth Century Photographs in the Museum Collection", The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, February 27–May 1, 1988.
"On the Art of Fixing a Shadow: 150 Years of Photography," National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., May 7–July 30 1989; Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, September 9–November 26, 1989; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA, December 21, 1989–February 25, 1990.
"Photographies: De la Réclame à Publicité", Musee National D'Art Moderne Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, October 31, 1990–January 6, 1991.
"Target Collection of American Photography: A Century in Pictures",
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, December 3, 2006–February 25, 2007
Austin Museum of Art, Austin, May 19–August 12, 2007
“Made for Magazines: Iconic 20th-Century Photographs,” The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, February 9–May 4, 2014.
Cataloguing data may change with further research.
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