More than two hundred masterpieces of early 20th century photography from New York's MoMA at MASI

The Museo d’arte della Svizzera italiana (MASI) in Lugano presents the Thomas Walther Collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, from April 25 to August 1, 2021, for the first time in Europe.

Masterpieces of Modern Photography 1900-1940: The Thomas Walther Collection at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, this is the title of the exhibition curated by Sarah Meister (curator of the Department of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art, New York), Quentin Bajac (director of the Jeu de Paume in Paris) Jane Pierce (research assistant at the Carl Jacobs Foundation), and coordinated by Francesca Bernasconi and Ludovica Introini, showcases a selection of more than two hundred masterpieces of photography from the first half of the twentieth century.

The photographs on display reveal how photographers active in this historical period, thanks to their creativity and experimentation, overcame the limits of the expressive capabilities of the photographic medium. Indeed, the creative potential of photography was extremely explored in the first half of the twentieth century: not only photographers, but also many figurative artists, both in Europe and in the United States, experimented with the possibilities of this medium, devising and developing techniques and methods that are still considered the basis of the most recent trends in photography.

Between 1977 and 1997, collector Thomas Walther collected the best surviving vintage prints of the most significant exponents of the modernist movements and a selection of images by lesser-known practitioners active before World War II, bringing them together in a unique collection that MoMA acquired in 2001 and 2017.

All of these photographs taken in the city, in the country, in the studio, or made for major exhibitions or for avant-garde publications, have in common the radical innovations with which the leading photographers of the time defined and explored their modernist visions.

Alongside iconic images by American photographers such as Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Paul Strand, Walker Evans, or Edward Weston and Europeans such as Karl Blossfeldt, Brassaï, Henri Cartier-Bresson, André Kertész and August Sander, the Walther Collection emphasizes the central role of women in early modern photography with shots by Berenice Abbott, Marianne Breslauer, Claude Cahun, Lore Feininger, Florence Henri, Irene Hoffmann, Lotte Jacobi, Lee Miller, Tina Modotti, Germaine Krull, Lucia Moholy and many others.

The exhibition also features masterpieces of photography from the Bauhaus (El Lissitzky, Lucia Moholy, László Moholy-Nagy) constructivism (Aleksandr Rodchenko, El Lissitzky) and surrealism (Man Ray, Maurice Tabard, Raoul Ubac) and more than a hundred works by other representatives of the photographic avant-garde, highlighting how photography has won its own central position in the field of visual arts.

For info: www.masilugano.ch

Image: Max Burchartz, Lotte (Eye) (1928; silver salt gelatin print, 30.2 x 40 cm; New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Thomas Walther Collection) © 2021 The Museum of Modern Art, New York

More than two hundred masterpieces of early 20th century photography from New York's MoMA at MASI

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