Lot 42: Roger Parry , 1905-1977 untitled (superimposition)

mounted, signed by the photographer in ink on the mount, matted, framed, a Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, exhibition label on the reverse, circa 1930

measurements note 8 7/8 by 6¾ in. (22.5 by 17.1 cm.)

Jill Quasha, The Quillan Collection of Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Photographs (New York, 1991), pl. 58 (this print)

Hendrik Berinson, Berlin Acquired from the above by Jill Quasha, New York, 1987Acquired by the Quillan Company from the above, 1989

Trained as a painter, Roger Parry apprenticed with photographer Maurice Tabard (Lot 65) in 1927 and 1928, and became involved with Surrealism at this time. He was interested throughout his career in experimental processes, and the print offered here demonstrates the use of superimposition, a technique for sandwiching multiple negatives. By bringing together multiple disparate photographs and superimposing them, Parry creates an ethereal and disembodied image that was in keeping with the tenets of Surrealism, which sought to tap the unconscious through dreams and other methods such as psychic automatism. In the creation of compelling and evocative images, photography was particularly suited to Surrealism, and its practitioners--Parry, Tabard, Hans Bellmer (Lot 15), and Man Ray (Lot 47) among them--experimented adventurously with such techniques as solarization, montage, and combination printing to bring the unconscious into closer contact with reality.