PAUL OUTERBRIDGE 1896-1958

A passionate Romantic, a Surrealist, a metaphysician with an unquenchable thirst for the transcendent in both art and life, Paul Outerbridge was an eccentric one-of-a-kind in the America of the Twenties and Thirties. He was also a hugely gifted photographer, whose way with depth of colour was perhaps not seen again until Haas, and whose technical innovations in both shooting and printing gave his images an absolutely distinctive quality. In the early Twenties he dazzled Duchamp, worked for French 'Vogue', moved in the orbit of Picasso, Man Ray and Stravinsky. Producing still lives, portraits and nudes, his ability to focus was profound. He paid attention to details and his studies, especially the black and white series, were formal, geometric and rigorous.