Standing Woman (Femme Debout)

Artist Herbert Matter (American, born Switzerland. Born April 25, 1907, Engelberg, Swit, 1907 - 1984)

DateNegative 1960-1965; print 1978

MediumGelatin silver print

DimensionsSupport: 16 × 20 in. (40.6 × 50.8 cm)
Mat: 19 3/4 × 23 3/4 in. (50.2 × 60.3 cm)

ClassificationsPhotograph

Credit LineGift in Honor of Norman S. Ives, Professor, Artist, Publisher and Friend of Herbert Matter, 2021

Object number2022.9.5

DescriptionVery minimal composition on horizontal page with image of sculpture of human form at center, filling page from top to bottom. Sculpture is very abstract, tall and elongated with minimal articularion of arms and legs, a rough texture overall, and a chunky base.
eMuseum Notes

Emuseum Notes

In the late 1940s, Giacometti began making drawings and sculptures of elongated figures. In a series of female figures, he reduced the human form to such essentials as to be almost unrecognizable. In this photographs, Herbert Matter further accentuates the radical treatment of the torso by positionning it at the center of a blank page and printing with very high contrast, making it appear almost a line on the page. These daring pieces are in conversation with the conventions of ancient Egyptian sculpture as much as they are with the modernist work of Auguste Rodin.

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