The strong three-dimensionality of the biomorphic and geometric forms in this composition makes them appear animated within a space bounded by color zones. Charles Biederman (1906 – 2004) had been experimenting with styles of European modernism since 1930 and had gravitated toward greater abstraction after seeing the work of Cubist artists, newly on view in New York. He painted this untitled work while living in Paris in 1936, under the fresh influences of surrealists Joan Miro and Fernand Leger, who preferred strange or oddly combined forms that were both unsettling and humorous.
Charles Biederman died at home in 2004 at the age of 98. His estate was given to the Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota, which has organized traveling exhibitions of Biederman’s work
Paul Outerbridge, Jr. (August 15, 1896 – October 17, 1958) was an American photographer prominent for his early use and experiments in color photography. Outerbridge was a fashion and commercial photographer, an early pioneer and teacher of color photography, and a creator of erotic nude photographs that could not be exhibited in his lifetime. Outerbridge became known for the high quality of his color illustrations, made by an extremely complex Tri-color Carbro Process (a photographic print with an image consisting of pigmented gelatin, rather than of silver or other metallic particles suspended in a uniform layer of gelatin, as in typical black-and-white prints, or of chromogenic dyes, as in typical photographic color prints) of which Images de Deauville (1936) is an excellent, example.
Paul Outerbridge, Images de Deauville was photographed in the Museum of Modern Art in NYC in July of 2014, but it is not currently on view.
