[Cut-out Silhouette]

Straddling the worlds of art and commercial design, Claude Tolmer worked for the Paris-based firm Maison Tolmer. Established by his father, the business became one of the most prestigious producers of graphic material and packaging for luxury brands in the early 20th century. Playfully engaging the negative and positive space created by the cut-out silhouette and photography’s own use of negatives and positives to reproduce images, Tolmer’s composition delights in the double possibilities of the figure through surface and shadow. A similar image featuring a different version of cut-out silhouettes was used in a cosmetics advertisement.