The Poetics of Eye and Lens

Michel Frizot

This study arose from the observation of a selection of

pictures in the Thomas Walther Collection at The Museum
of Modern Art, New York, mainly dating from the 1920s,
which give a central role to the human eye gazing at
the viewer. The prevalence of this theme in the Walther
Collection emphasizes the conceptual allegiance between
this collection and the New Vision. An idea, typical of the
New Vision, emerges from these pictures — a concept of
the new medium of photography and its relationship to the
eye and the hand. In this concept, the photographic record-
ing process fully replaces the hand’s gesture, and the eye’s
optical role is transferred to the lens. This model — the
analogy of the eye and lens — dates back to the seventeenth
century, when it arose in relation to the camera obscura. It
is an analogy between the structure of the eye, as observed
by dissection, and that of the camera obscura, which was
designed in imitation of the eye (with the chamber’s lens
equivalent to the lens of the eye).1 In the early days of photo-
graphy, when the camera obscura was adapted from its role
as an aid to drawing to instead directly record an image on
a photosensitive surface, the analogy became even more
relevant, and it was broadly explored by commentators on
the new medium. It reappeared in the context of the 1920s
avant-garde in a more theoretical and technological form,
as an eye-lens analogy and a new eye-photograph combina-
tion: one of the artistic developments of modernity.
The challenge relates to the articulation of the techni-
cal (photographic) aspect and artistic creation: these works
tell us clearly that the camera is an artistic medium, the
equal of previous methods and perhaps even more modern
and efficient, as László Moholy-Nagy suggested in 1925 fig. 1  El Lissitzky (Lazar Markovich Lissitzky). Self-Portrait (The Constructor). 1924.
Gelatin silver print, 5 ½ × 3 ½" (13.9 × 8.9 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
in Malerei, Fotografie, Film (Painting, Photography, Film). In Thomas Walther Collection. Gift of Shirley C. Burden, by exchange (MoMA 1764.2001).
the early twentieth century, transition to the use of portable © 2014 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
devices, or “hand” cameras — which became widespread
in the 1920s with the invention of the Ermanox, Leica, and
Rolleiflex — implied an effective, creative, almost causal
relationship between the eye and the viewfinder, and there-
fore between the eye and the lens. The photographer now The human eye was the pivot of this qualitative leap and
composed the shot with an eyepiece viewfinder, putting the of the new power of vision: we could see with our eyes in the
eye physically very close to the lens, and it was the eye that form of a photograph, which was “seen” and recorded by a
decided, by its proximity, what the lens would “collect.” camera, that which could not be seen directly by the human
The lens was thus considered a second eye whose technical eye in situ. Seeing was the watchword of modernity around
efficiency translated into modern, new, unexpected images: 1930, symbolized by the creation of the magazine Vu (“seen”)
photography, the result of this second eye’s action, thus in 1928 in Paris. But in these photographs we see the world
became an art whose faculties fit the needs and concepts (discover it) through the photo — that is to say, through the
of the pictorial, graphic, and architectural avant-gardes. photographic lens-eye. There is a complementarity between

Frizot 1
the human eye and technical eye, one supporting the other the same year he made The Constructor: on the poster the
and one surpassing the other. This was the conceptual basis little bottle of ink (used for the compass line, one imag-
of the new art, addressing different forms of competition, ines) is placed in the center of the palm, like the eye in The
substitution, and meaning between the two. Constructor.5 This emphatic detail makes it clear that the
We have selected a set of photographs from the location of the eye in the Walther Collection work is not
Walther Collection that are clearly symptomatic of the eye- accidental; it was chosen, and it is the central, determining
photography relationship, because they put the focus in an motif of this image-construction, well before the formula-
innovative way on the eye within the face or on the eye-lens tion of the photo-eye concept. In 1924, photography was still
analogy. Proceeding by association with other images from fairly separate from painting, architecture, and design; at
the Walther Collection and with documents from the same most, it was considered to be on the fringes of these major
historical and artistic environment, we will show how this avant-garde art forms.
representation of the eye arose in different contexts and One of the keys to The Constructor is the Soviet picto-
what meanings its use implied, depending on the medium rial and theoretical environment that was emerging from
and the intended status of the work. And through these Kazimir Malevich’s Suprematism and Vladimir Tatlin’s
works we will try to define the development of some major Constructivism (to which Lissitzky had close ties). The basic
aesthetic issues that stimulated the 1920s avant-garde. idea was that the artist would construct a new world, and
photography would be one of the new tools used to build
Portraiture: The Eye, the Gaze it. The other key to the work is the context of Germany
The motif of the eye as axis is the raison d’être of two major and Western Europe, particularly the Bauhaus movement.
works from this period, both highly representative of the Lissitzky, a Russian, was educated in Germany; he had ties
New Vision: El Lissitzky’s Self-Portrait (The Constructor), of to the Bauhaus, to Moholy-Nagy, to Theo van Doesburg’s de
1924, and Max Burchartz’s Lotte (Eye) (Lotte [Auge]), of 1928. Stijl group, and, especially, to Kurt Schwitters. In the 1920s
These two famous works, far from being simply portraits, are he made many trips to Germany, took part in activities in
true aesthetic propositions — in a sense, manifestos in the Hannover, and organized Soviet representation in several
form of photographs — which stipulate the supremacy of the German exhibitions — such as Die Pressa, in Cologne in 1928
human eye combined with the photographic process. (which included his own photographic fresco), and Film und
Lissitzky’s complex work (fig. 1) is a photomontage Foto, in Stuttgart in 1929.
in which we see the artist’s face, front view, superimposed The Constructor can be compared to another self-
over a hand holding a compass, so that his right eye (the portrait by Lissitzky, this one in the Metropolitan Museum of
only one visible) appears in the center of the palm of the Art, New York (fig. 3). This work is an important counter-
hand — the graphic visualization of two traditional “mediums” part to The Constructor because it was produced at the same
of artistic creation, the eye and the hand. But The Constructor time, during Lissitzky’s stay in Switzerland; the print was
is primarily photographic, made by a very creative multi- made using a photogram technique from the negative of a
media artist at a time when he (like his colleague Aleksandr self-portrait in which the artist wears a headband or cap. The
Rodchenko) had turned to photography, working to make
it the most modern medium in a context of pictorial mod-
ernism, Constructivism, and the Soviet avant-garde.2 A
manifesto piece, it glorifies human vision — showing an eye
in close-up — in a sort of rivalry with the camera and with
the photographic process, which are implied by the use of
photography and photomontage. The complex creation of
the work can be reconstructed; the basic elements of the
final montage allow us to better understand the challenges
of the work.3 There is the artist’s self-portrait, with high-
contrast lighting, which leaves half of the face in shadow and
thus brings out his right eye, marked by light at the edge of
the shadows,4 and the hand and compass on graph paper,
an element that is also very deliberately designed to be a
kind of self-portrait. An intermediate print shows that only
two negatives were superimposed (fig. 2). In 1927 Lissitzky
reused the hand-and-compass motif on the cover of
Arkhitektura: raboty arkhitekturnogo fakul’teta VKhUTEMASa,
1920–1927 (Architecture: Work from the architectural faculty
fig. 2  El Lissitzky (Lazar Markovich Lissitzky). Untitled (Hand with a Compass). 1924.
of VKhUTEMAS, 1920–1927) but, most importantly, he Gelatin silver print, 5 ¾ × 8 ⅙" (14.6 × 20.5 cm). Collection Ann and Jürgen Wilde,
used it, as a drawing, for a poster for Pelikan ink in 1924, Zülpich. © 2014 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Frizot 2
 fig. 4  El Lissitzky (Lazar Markovich Lissitzky). Vladimir Tatlin Working on the Monument
to the Third International. From Il’ia Erenburg. Shest’ povestei o legkikh kontsakh
(Six tales with easy endings). 1922. Private collection. © 2014 Artists Rights Society
(ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

fig. 3  El Lissitzky (Lazar Markovich Lissitzky). Self-Portrait. 1924–25. Gelatin silver print,
6 13/16 × 4 ¾" (17.3 × 12.1 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Gilman
Collection. Purchase, Denise and Andrew Saul Gift. © 2014 Artists Rights Society
(ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Digital image: © The Metropolitan Museum
of Art/Art Resource, NY

most important thing is the presence of the compass, the one

seen in The Constructor, appearing here in negative. In The
Constructor the hand holds a compass and the artist’s eye is
combined with the hand. The Metropolitan Museum self-
portrait features another combination of the face-gaze and
the compass, in which the compass surrounds the face,
creating a triangle — possibly a reference to the visual angle
illustrated by perspectivists since the seventeenth century.
This angle delineates ocular perception and also, owing to
the straight path of light, the eye’s ability to capture the linear
relationship between objects in space at various distances.
A reference to the visual angle (or, in three dimensions,
the visual cone) is found most explicitly in Lissitzky’s picture
of Tatlin working on his Monument to the Third International,
published in 1922 (fig. 4). Tatlin appears in a stance based
on a photograph: the head of the compass (an architect’s
angular instrument) is placed on Tatlin’s eye, at the center
of a circle around his face, which could represent an eyeball
from which the compass is emerging. It is also a metaphor
fig. 5  Franz Roh and Jan Tschichold. Foto-Auge: 76 Fotos der Zeit (Photo-eye: 76 photos
for the visual angle and the visually constructive power of the of the time). Stuttgart: F. Wedekind, 1929. The Museum of Modern Art Library, New
artist. Lissitzky was fascinated by perspective, the pictorial York. © 2014 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Frizot 3
 This photograph was shown in Fifo (first on the list of
thirteen photographs by Burchartz in the catalogue), and
it was reproduced in Photographie, the first special edition of
the journal Arts et métiers graphiques, in 1930. It was better
known at the time for being shown as a giant enlargement
at the entrance of the exhibition Das Lichtbild (Photography),
in 1930–31 (at the Munich and Essen installations, especially;
fig. 8). Das Lichtbild, which was organized by Burchartz, was
a public celebration of the New Vision, and Lotte (Eye) was
a manifesto for the cause. We know that Burchartz’s interest
in the eye is not unique to this work, as another photograph
shown at Fifo is similar: listed in the catalogue, as num-
ber 150, is Grete W. (Augen), alongside Grete (Kopf)(Grete
[Head]), also by Burchartz.
The Constructor and Lotte (Eye) were both symbols
of the New Vision in 1929, though The Constructor, made four
years prior to the other, was more evocative of Soviet film
fig. 6  Max Burchartz. Lotte (Eye) (Lotte [Auge]). 1928. Gelatin silver print, 1928–29, and art. The Foto-Auge book, whose cover reproduces The
11 ⅞ × 15 ¾" (30.2 × 40 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Thomas Walther
Collection. Acquired through the generosity of Peter Norton (MoMA 1646.2001). ©
Constructor, also contains Lotte (Eye) (as plate 31). The pho-
2014 Max Burchartz/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Germany tographs were also used in two prospectuses for Foto-Auge
designed in 1929 by Jan Tschichold — as if there had been

representation of spaces, and architectural perspective

drawing, which were the basis of his Proun pictorial and
social theory, a term he used as a title for many paintings
and projects.
But The Constructor is most famous for appearing on
the cover of Foto-Auge: 76 Fotos der Zeit (Photo-eye: 76
photos of the time) (fig. 5). This book, by Franz Roh and Jan
Tschichold, was published in 1929 at the time of Film und Foto,
which was mounted by the Deutscher Werkbund. Lissitzky’s
work is credited as “El Lissitzky, Picture of Himself.” The book
did a lot more for the international exposure of the exhibi-
tion, known as Fifo, and of avant-garde ideas than the official
exhibition catalogue, which was sparsely illustrated and not
widely distributed. The title of the book (symptomatically,
presented on the cover in German, French, and English) was
both the program for the “New Vision” celebrated in the
exhibition and the caption for Lissitzky’s work presented
above it.
Burchartz’s Lotte (Eye) (fig. 6), is directly linked to the
photo-eye concept, of which it is the second emblem after
The Constructor. This image of the left side of a little girl’s
face (that of the photographer’s daughter) highlights the eye,
which is looking directly toward the camera lens. But Lotte
(Eye) is not a photographic close-up, but a cropped version
of a negative by Burchartz (fig. 7). Burchartz was a photog-
rapher, of course, but his photographic work can be situated
as part of his work as a typographer, graphic designer, and
poster designer; in 1928, when he made this picture, he was fig. 7  Max Burchartz. Porträt (Portrait). From Jörg Stürzebecher. “Max ist endlich auf
dem richtigen Weg”: Max Burchartz, 1887–1961. Frankfurt: Deutscher Werkbund, 1993.
a professor at the Folkwang Hochschule, in Essen, and ran The Museum of Modern Art Library, New York. © 2014 Max Burchartz/Artists Rights
an advertising agency in Bochum. Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Germany

Frizot 4
fig. 8  Das Lichtbild Essen (Photography Essen). 1931. Installation view. Exhibition design
by Max Burchartz

some hesitation between which of these two pictures best

signified the new aesthetic. Both works are also reproduced
in the Fifo exhibition catalogue.
In 1924, Lissitzky made a portrait of Schwitters (fig.
9), at a time when the two artists were extremely close;
Lissitzky was then the artistic director of the Kestner Society
in Hannover. The print, on printing-out paper, was made by
superimposing at least two negatives, one a portrait of
Schwitters in front of a Merz poster, the other a portrait of
Schwitters with his mouth open (probably taken on the same
day, as he is wearing the same shirt and his tie is askew),
with elements taken from the cover of a Merz magazine and
a Pelikan ad by Lissitzky.6 The order of the successive and/
or simultaneous inclusion of those elements is difficult to
trace because of the technique used, which is closer to a
photogram than a classic print; it was built in stages, like The
Constructor.7 The result is a very precisely calculated work,
rigorously constructed: as in The Constructor, the placement
of the eyes is carefully planned. The right eye of one face
takes the place of the left eye of the other, so that we see a
full face complemented by a larger eye, combined with an
open mouth. This single wide-open eye contrasts with the
half-closed eyes of the other face; it cannot be without
import, as the image is carefully composed of a set of signs
that each have their own meaning. The result is a sort of fig. 9  El Lissitzky (Lazar Markovich Lissitzky). Kurt Schwitters. 1924. Gelatin silver print,
4 ¼ × 3 ⅞" (10.8 × 9.8 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Thomas Walther
hybrid face, a synthesis of two faces, with three eyes, a Collection. Gift of Shirley C. Burden, by exchange (MoMA 1763.2001). © 2014 Artists
formula to which Lissitzky would return in a famous poster Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Frizot 5
 in 1929 (fig. 10): the conjunction of the eyes is symbolic, a
“shared vision” between a young man and a young woman.
In the portrait of Schwitters, the overlapping of the
eyes creates the effect of two gazes, as well as isolating one
eye — larger and open wider — which is like the one in The
Constructor. It can be compared to the “simultaneous portrait”
of Hannah Höch that Moholy-Nagy, who was always aware
of the impact of new processes, offered in Malerei, Fotografie,
Film (fig. 11). Presented as an “original” portrait of the photo-
montage artist and classified as an “Amateur snapshot,”
the portrait actually shows very calculated coincidences (eye
in profile over an eye facing forward), which are geometri-
cally as intentional and calculated as Lissitzky’s. Höch
herself had produced this type of image combination, in a
photomontage dating from 1919.
On the other hand, the Expressionist Warriorlike Face
(Kriegerisches Antlitz), of 1926–27, by Umbo (Otto Umbehr)
(fig. 12), leads us into strictly personal and avant-garde

fig. 11  Unknown photographer. Hannah Höch: Anfangsform des simultanen Porträts

(Hannah Höch: Initial form of a simultaneous portrait). In László Moholy-Nagy.
Malerei, Fotografie, Film (Painting, Photography, Film). Munich: Albert Langen Verlag,
1925. The Museum of Modern Art Library, New York. © 2014 Artists Rights Society
(ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

experimentation with portraiture.8 The photograph shows

the artist Paul Citroen, his face half-painted and lit from
below; according to Herbert Molderings, Umbo was the
first to photograph faces in close-up, and he did so in the
avant-garde educational context of the Bauhaus. Umbo, a
student at the Weimar Bauhaus from 1921–23, was des-
tined for a career as an artist, illustrator, and painter, but in
December 1926 he suffered a serious bout of depression
due to a lack of direction; it was then that his friend Citroen,
witnessing the tough time he was having, suggested he opt
for photography and use the 13 by 18 centimeter (5 ⅛ by
7 ⅛ inch) camera his father had given him (a rudimentary
device without a shutter or aperture).9
In a series of photographic experiments in December
1926, Citroen and Umbo photographed each other and their
friends; 10 some of the pictures taken of Umbo by Citroen
were considered by Umbo to be ​​self-portraits, made accord-
ing to his own framing instructions. Umbo’s first attempts
were certainly two close-ups of Citroen’s face. Umbo
was a film assistant and actor, which explains his choice
fig. 10  El Lissitzky (Lazar Markovich Lissitzky). USSR russische Ausstellung, Zurich of contrasting lighting and close-up framing in Warriorlike
(USSR Russian exhibition, Zurich). 1929. Gravure, 49 × 35 ¼" (124.5 × 89.5 cm). The
Museum of Modern Art, New York. Jan Tschichold Collection. Gift of Philip Johnson.
Face: these features are those of the silent films of the time,
© 2014 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn in which expressions were exaggerated and magnified to

Frizot 6
fig. 12  Umbo (Otto Umbehr). Warriorlike Face (Kriegerisches Antlitz). 1926–27. Gelatin fig. 14  Umbo (Otto Umbehr). Die Bauhaus-Schülerin Immeke Schwollmann (The
silver print, 6 13/16 × 4 13/16" (17.3 × 12.2 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Bauhaus student Immeke Schwollmann). 1927. Gelatin silver print, 7 × 5" (18 × 13 cm).
Thomas Walther Collection. Gift of Thomas Walther (MoMA 1886.2001). © 2014 Bauhaus-Archiv, Berlin. © 2014 Umbo/Gallery Kicken Berlin/Phyllis Umbehr/VG
Umbo/Gallery Kicken Berlin/Phyllis Umbehr/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn Bild-Kunst, Bonn

fig. 13  Umbo (Otto Umbehr). Ruth Landshoff (The Hand) (Ruth Landshoff [Die Hand]). fig. 15  Umbo (Otto Umbehr). Ruth mit Maske (Ruth with mask). 1927. Gelatin silver
1927. Gelatin silver print, 6 ¾ × 4 13/16" (17.2 × 12.2 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, print, 7 × 5 1/16" (17.8 × 12.9 cm). Galerie Kicken, Cologne. © 2014 Umbo/Gallery Kicken
New York. Thomas Walther Collection. Gift of Shirley C. Burden, by exchange (MoMA Berlin/Phyllis Umbehr/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
1885.2001). © 2014 Umbo/Gallery Kicken Berlin/Phyllis Umbehr/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Frizot 7
 fig. 18  Umbo (Otto Umbehr). Photographs. In “Photographiere in Raten.” Die Grüne
Post, no. 11 (July 19, 1927). © 2014 Umbo/Gallery Kicken Berlin/Phyllis Umbehr/VG
Bild-Kunst, Bonn

make the emotions easier to read. Here we have a clear influ-

ence from the cinema, both technically and expressively.
Umbo’s portrait Ruth Landshoff (The Hand) (Ruth
Landshoff [Die Hand]) (fig. 13) was made a little later, in 1927,
and so is less experimental; Landshoff was a silent film
actress (she appeared in Nosferatu in 1922). This photograph
is overexposed, like all the negatives in the series it is part
of. The face and hands are very white, and only the eyes and
mouth appear in contrast, with the same intensity as the
hair and clothing.11 Umbo considered this photograph most
successful, combining the impression given by the gaze
and by the relaxed hand — showing both determination and
alertness, relaxation and softness. Other portraits by Umbo
from 1926–27 show the same pattern of framing and dramatic
lighting, highlighting the subject’s gaze, whose direction and
luminous intensity are critical elements of the work. Dividing
the face through the use of lighting (fig. 14), a mask (fig. 15),
or the shadow of a hat over the eyes (fig. 16) was uncom-
mon at the time. In his experimentation in late 1926 and 1927,
fig. 16  Umbo (Otto Umbehr). Ruth Landshoff. Der Hut (Ruth Landshoff. The hat). 1927. Umbo was unique in framing only the face and in showing
Gelatin silver print, 7 × 5" (18 × 12.9 cm). Galerie Kicken, Cologne. © 2014 Umbo/
Gallery Kicken Berlin/Phyllis Umbehr/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
a partial face filling the entire space. As Molderings has
noted, “The drastic cropping of the image draws the viewer’s
fig. 17  Umbo (Otto Umbehr). Erinnerung an Lores Augen (Remembering Lore’s eyes).
1926. Gelatin silver print, 7 × 5" (17.9 × 12.9 cm). Galerie Kicken, Cologne. © 2014
attention entirely to the subject’s sensory organs, and to
Umbo/Gallery Kicken Berlin/Phyllis Umbehr/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn the expression in the eyes in particular.”12 We can describe

Frizot 8
Umbo’s portraits at this time as experiments in different
ways of highlighting the gaze: in Erinnerung an Lores Augen
(Remembering Lore’s eyes), of 1926 (fig. 17), he crops to
the eyes, which are in the middle of the image, divided into
two dark and light areas by the hair.13 In Ruth Landshoff. Der
Hut (Ruth Landshoff. The hat), the shadow enhances the
eye rather than hiding it. Umbo’s portraits found an audi-
ence as early as 1927, printed in two art publications — Der
Querschnitt, in April, and Die Grüne Post (fig. 18) — making
them influential modernist benchmarks. Ruth Landshoff (The
Hand) was included in Werner Gräff’s book Es kommt der
neue Fotograf! (Here comes the new photographer!), com-
missioned to accompany Fifo in 1929.
Two portraits by Kertész, both from 1926, follow a
modernist particularism that is unique to Kertész at that
time (figs. 19, 20). Kertész’s radical style emphasizes the
gaze, the absolute symmetry of the two eyes, the act of
witnessing — almost confronting — that is elicited from the
viewer, on whom the subject’s eyes are riveted. Existing
Kertész negatives show that Mondrian was printed from a
full glass plate from a 9 by 12 centimeter (3 9/16 by 4 ¾ inch)
camera, and thus was shot as a close-up view of the face;
two other negatives feature alternate views: a mid-range
shot shows Mondrian from the waist up, holding his pipe,
and a wide shot shows almost his entire body.14
Kertész created frontal portraits from his early days
(fig. 21), and we cannot forget that in 1933 he made a self-
portrait with his wife Elisabeth in which she stares at the
camera, a portrait Kertész would crop repeatedly (fig. 22).
Further, it was probably Kertész who, at the request of Vu
magazine, took eight photographs of Miss France 1930, large
facing and profile shots and six close-ups of her face, both
head-on and in profile — from which the art director at Vu
(presumably Irene Lidova) extracted details to create a pho-
tomontage (fig. 23).15 In this striking graphic construction,
we come back to the twofold perspective of the eye-gaze
and eye-vision we saw with Lissitzky’s The Constructor and
Burchartz’s Lotte (Auge).
Lucia Moholy became a professional photographer
in 1923, and it is likely that she led her husband, László
Moholy-Nagy, to work with photography after a period of
collaboration. She photographed the new Bauhaus buildings
in Dessau, and in 1928, after moving to Berlin, she became
a theater photographer. In 1927, when she took a portrait of
Florence Henri, a student at the Bauhaus (fig. 24), Moholy
was an avant-garde photographer (she would participate
in Fifo in 1929). The portrait reflects the New Vision by dint
fig. 19  André Kertész. Mondrian. 1926. Gelatin silver print, c. 1928, 4 5/16 × 3 ⅛"
of its very tight framing (obtained with the original shot, (10.9 × 7.9 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Thomas Walther Collection.
then through cropping when printing). In addition, the work Gift of Thomas Walther (MoMA 1720.2001). © Estate of André Kertész

is a large-scale enlargement, which was rare at the time fig. 20  André Kertész. Mlle Jaffée. 1926. Gelatin silver print, 1926–35, 6 ¼ × 5 11/16"
and required great technical skill. The contrast accentuated (15.8 × 14.5 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Thomas Walther Collection.
Grace M. Mayer Fund (MoMA 1719.2001). © Estate of André Kertész
by the print favors the opposition of very dark areas (hair,
eyes, mouth, and earring). As Van Deren Coke has written,
Moholy “usually placed her camera as close as possible to
the face of her subject and recorded a nose, mouth, eyes

Frizot 9
 fig. 23  André Kertész. Photographs. In E. W. “Le Triomphe de la femme” (The triumph of
woman). Vu, no. 104 (March 12, 1930). © Estate of André Kertész

on the plate, as though they were geometric shapes whose

unique combination characterized said subject, allowing the
subject to be identified and recognized.”16 In her 1939 book
A Hundred Years of Photography, Moholy noted that this type
of portrait was influenced in the 1920s by Russian films (first
and foremost Sergei Eisenstein’s The Battleship Potemkin)
and added: “To the general public in Western Europe this
style appears strange and exotic. They find it interesting and
worth discussing, but few of them wish to have their por-
traits taken in the same way.”17
Edmund Kesting was also an apostle of portraits around
1930 and above all of the face seen in close-up. Born in 1892,
and also a painter, he created an art school in Dresden, Der
Weg. In 1926–27 he began using multiple exposures in his
fig. 21  André Kertész. My Mother, Ernesztin Kertész. 1919. Gelatin silver print, 7 ¼ × 5 ½"
(18.7 × 13.8 cm). Courtesy Estate of André Kertész. © Robert Gurbo and Sarah
photography. He met Lissitzky, probably in Dresden in 1926,
Morthland, Archive Consulting and Management Services LLC, New York. © Estate and remained associated with him. Glance to the Sun (1928;
of André Kertész
fig. 25), a photograph of his son Konstantin, is a greatly
fig. 22  André Kertész. Elizabeth and I. 1933. Gelatin silver print, 1960, 10 × 6 ⅞" enlarged detail from a negative, connecting the child’s eye
(25.3 × 17.5 cm). Collection Sarah Morthland, New York. © Robert Gurbo and
Sarah Morthland, Archive Consulting and Management Services LLC, New York.
and hand. The eye, head-on or in profile (sometimes com-
© Estate of André Kertész bined), is a frequent presence in Kesting’s work, as is the

Frizot 10
 the family business was the supply of pictures to many of
those newspapers of celebrities and events, not only from
the realm of theater or art.”18 Jacobi did not have a single
style but rather varied her compositions. She often said, “My
style is the style of the people I photograph.” The fram-
ing, the most striking aspect of this portrait, accentuates
Lederer’s downcast gaze, the distinctive sign of the actor’s
personality; Peter Lorre’s gaze, in a completely different
graphical composition, of 1932, is critical to the image and
also a distinctive sign of the actor. Ilse Langner, of c. 1930 (fig.
34), also demonstrates Jacobi’s interest in the human face.
These portraits are based on an analysis of the expression
of her sitters’ eyes, but Jacobi adapted to her models’ acting
styles, also creating portrait studies resembling excerpts
from a staging or from a film. But the eyes and hands always
take the lead role: see, for example, Arnold Zweig, Writer,
Berlin, c. 1930; Sokoloff (?), Actor, Berlin, c. 1930; Harold
Kreutzberg, Dancer, Berlin, c. 1930; and Erich Karow, Comedian,
Berlin, c. 1930.19
Am I Beautiful? (Suis-je belle?), by Maurice Tabard
(1929; fig. 35), is a masterly example of the use of overlap-
ping negatives and a systematic interest in the motif of the
eye — with a touch of Man Ray–style Surrealist ambiguity.
The work is based on a portrait of a woman in a hat, certainly
a fashion photograph like the ones Tabard was taking as
part of his work for Parisian department stores. The print
fig. 24  Lucia Moholy. Florence Henri. 1927. Gelatin silver print, 1927–35, 14 ⅝ × 11" (37.2
× 27.9 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Thomas Walther Collection. Gift is a multiple exposure, featuring the original negative and
of Thomas Walther (MoMA 1790.2001). © 2014 Lucia Moholy Estate/Artists Rights a portion of the same negative (the eye) magnified about
Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
twofold in the enlarger. The fact that it is the subject's “real”

hand, another means of bodily, physiological expression: see,

for example, Die Tänzer Dean Goodelle II (The dancer Dean
Goodelle II) (1930; fig. 26), which can be compared to a 1929
self-portrait (fig. 27). The latter is a surface with complex
and hard-to-read forms — the hand on one side, the gaze
(two eyes that appear clearly) on the other, occupying a very
small portion of the image but presenting a very specific
detail. The emphasis on the eyes is also evident in Kesting’s
Ruth Poelzig (1928; fig. 28), and Familienporträit Müller (Müller
family portrait) (1927–28; fig 29). Eyes and hands are more
closely associated in Schattenspiel der Masken (Shadow play
of the masks) (c. 1930; fig. 30) (with negativity, shadows,
masks as false faces, and black eyeholes), and in Marianne
Vogelsang (1934; fig. 31). There is also a variant of Glance to
the Sun, in which a very similar hand heightens the expres-
siveness of the single visible eye (fig. 32).
Lotte Jacobi introduces us to another register for the
expression of the gaze — that is, actors’ expressions — with
Franz Lederer (c. 1929; fig. 33), a portrait of a theater and film
actor. Jacobi began working in her father’s portrait studio in
Berlin, then got involved with journalism in 1927. She eventu- fig. 25  Edmund Kesting. Glance to the Sun (Blick zur Sonne). 1928. Gelatin silver print,
1934–39, 13 1/16 × 14 ½" (33.2 × 36.8 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
ally specialized in theater artists, taking advantage of the Thomas Walther Collection. Gift of Thomas Walther (MoMA 1736.2001). © 2014/
huge demand from the press: “[In Berlin, 1927–35], part of Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Frizot 11
fig. 26  Edmund Kesting. Die Tänzer Dean Goodelle II (The dancer Dean Goodelle II).
1930. From Klaus Werner. Edmund Kesting: Ein Mahler fotografiert (Edmund Kesting:
A painter photographs). Leipzig: VEB Fotokinoverlag, 1987. The Museum of Modern
Art Library, New York. © 2014/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-
Kunst, Bonn

fig. 27  Edmund Kesting. Selbstporträit mit Pinsel und Maltafel (Self-portrait with
brush and palette). 1929. From Klaus Werner. Edmund Kesting: Ein Mahler fotografiert
(Edmund Kesting: A painter photographs). Leipzig: VEB Fotokinoverlag, 1987. The
Museum of Modern Art Library, New York. © 2014/Artists Rights Society (ARS),
New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

fig. 28  Edmund Kesting. Ruth Poelzig. 1928. From Klaus Werner. Edmund Kesting:
Ein Mahler fotografiert (Edmund Kesting: A painter photographs). Leipzig: VEB
Fotokinoverlag, 1987. The Museum of Modern Art Library, New York. © 2014/Artists
Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Frizot 12
fig. 29  Edmund Kesting. Familienporträit Müller (Müller family portrait). 1927–28. From fig. 31  Edmund Kesting. Marianne Vogelsang. 1934. From Klaus Werner. Edmund
Klaus Werner. Edmund Kesting: Ein Mahler fotografiert (Edmund Kesting: A painter Kesting: Ein Mahler fotografiert (Edmund Kesting: A painter photographs). Leipzig: VEB
photographs). Leipzig: VEB Fotokinoverlag, 1987. The Museum of Modern Art Library, Fotokinoverlag, 1987. The Museum of Modern Art Library, New York. © 2014/Artists
New York. © 2014/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

fig. 30  Edmund Kesting. Schattenspiel der Masken (Shadow play of the masks). c. 1930. fig. 32  Edmund Kesting. Konstantin. 1928–29. From Klaus Werner. Edmund Kesting:
From Klaus Werner. Edmund Kesting: Ein Mahler fotografiert (Edmund Kesting: A painter Ein Mahler fotografiert (Edmund Kesting: A painter photographs). Leipzig: VEB
photographs). Leipzig: VEB Fotokinoverlag, 1987. The Museum of Modern Art Library, Fotokinoverlag, 1987. The Museum of Modern Art Library, New York. © 2014/Artists
New York. © 2014/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Frizot 13
fig. 33  Lotte Jacobi. Franz Lederer. c. 1929. Gelatin silver print, c. 1929–40, 8 ⅜ × 6 ⅛" fig. 34  Lotte Jacobi. Ilse Langner. c. 1930. Gelatin silver print, 1932–33, 8 ⅞ × 6 ½" (22.5
(21.3 × 15.5 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Thomas Walther Collection. × 16.5 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Thomas Walther Collection. Gift
Grace M. Mayer Fund (MoMA 1708.2001). © Lotte Jacobi Collection, University of of Thomas Walther (MoMA 1709.2001). © Lotte Jacobi Collection, University of New
New Hampshire Hampshire

eye and in its normal location, but disproportionate in size, stresses the fascination of the female gaze and the power of
gives the image its strangeness. The other parts of the bust, the subject’s eyes: “Light eyes, as though washed with tears,
protected from light by masking, are underexposed, and looking at us, feverless. The enchantment began.”22 The
thus help to showcase the eye.20 This work exemplifies one two photographs use the same principle: a close-up of a
of Tabard’s favorite themes: the eye and gaze, sometimes face, in which the eyes, through the direction of the gaze, the
with the hand, put into perspective in apparently fictitious intensity of the pupils, and the reflected light on the tears,
spaces by the layering of several negatives or the negativiz- are the expressive element.
ing of the print. Tabard could have seen double impressions
in Malerei, Fotografie, Film, in several 1929 publications The Lens Is an Eye
(including Foto-Auge), and at the Fifo exhibition, to which he So far we have considered the theme of the human eye in
contributed seven photos.21 The eye and the gaze, mainly relation to portraiture and to the gaze, with the concept
female, are the unifying elements of Tabard’s personal work of the lens as a “mechanical eye” somewhat in the back-
in the years 1928–40. In a solarized portrait of 1936 (fig. 36), ground. Other works in the Walther Collection make a very
almost the only graphic elements that remain are the eye explicit connection between the eye and the camera lens.
and mouth on a neutral surface. Untitled (Portrait of László Moholy-Nagy), by Moholy
Study (Étude), a portrait by Germaine Krull (1931; fig. and Moholy-Nagy (1925; fig. 39), is in the avant-garde
37), is an illustration for La Folle d’Itteville (The madwoman Bauhaus vein, made at a time when the two artists were
of Itteville), a 1931 crime photo-novel by Georges Simenon. very active and inventive in their use of photography.
This photograph shows the novel’s heroine, a strange and Incorporating an unusual pose and a possibly spontane-
fascinating woman at the center of a police mystery. It is one ous gesture, the photograph combines a direct gaze in the
of two portraits used on successive pages of the book (fig. background with a hand in the foreground that seems to
38); the other picture is linked in the novel to a remark that block part of the shot — that is, it seems to hamper the

Frizot 14
fig. 35  Maurice Tabard. Am I Beautiful? (Suis-je belle?). 1929. Gelatin silver print, fig. 36  Maurice Tabard. Untitled. 1936. Gelatin silver print, 1936–55, 11 ½ × 9 ¼" (29.2 ×
1929–55, 9 5/16 × 6 15/16" (23.6 × 17.7 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. 23.5 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Thomas Walther Collection. Gift of
Thomas Walther Collection. Gift of Shirley C. Burden, by exchange (MoMA 1875.2001) Shirley C. Burden, by exchange (MoMA 1881.2001)

fig. 37  Germaine Krull. Study (Étude). 1931. Gelatin silver print, 1931–60, 8 7/16 × 6 1/16" fig. 38  Spreads from Georges Simenon. La Folle d’Itteville. Paris: Éditions Jacques
(21.5 × 15.4 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Thomas Walther Collection. Haumont, 1931
Gift of Thomas Walther (MoMA 1754.2001). © Estate Germaine Krull, Museum
Folkwang, Essen

Frizot 15
lens’s “vision.” Moholy-Nagy used a similar motif in a pho-
tomontage that he reused for a famous 1927 poster (fig. 40),
an important graphic and typographic work. The portrait
seems to be a private joke or at least a reference to the
earlier work, even if the gesture should be interpreted in the
private circumstances of a photo shoot. Moholy-Nagy also
used the hand as the basis for a 1925–27 photogram that he
adapted to make a poster for the magazine Qualität in 1931.
As that issue of the journal was devoted to photography,
the artist added a camera, with its lens positioned in the
palm of the hand; the composition recalls Lissitzky’s The
Constructor and his 1924 Pelikan ink advertisement, both of
which Moholy-Nagy was well acquainted with.
Three 1929 photographs by Aenne Biermann — Nose
and Mouth (Nase und Mund) (MoMA 1619.2001); Nose
(Nase) (MoMA 1618.2001); and Right Eye (Rechtes Auge) (fig.
41) — are all greatly enlarged details from the same negative,
a print of which was reproduced in the 1930 book Aenne
Biermann: 60 Fotos (fig. 42, right). The details are adjusted
to give the impression of a front view, although the angle
is slightly oblique. Right Eye, in its use of detail, glorifies the
eye as a sort of “photographic body,” the biological organ
situated behind the camera viewfinder, which directs, con-
trols, and combines with the camera lens or movie camera.
Biermann took part in Fifo; she was supported by Roh,
a theorist and practitioner of the New Vision and co-author
of Foto-Auge, who published an article on her in 1928 and
then Aenne Biermann: 60 Fotos. Highly active in avant-garde
photographic circles, Biermann participated in the exhibi-
tions Fotografie der Gegenwart (Photography of the present),
Essen, 1929; Das Lichtbild, Munich, 1930, and Essen, 1931;
Die neue Fotografie, Basel, 1931; the Brussels Photography
Fair, 1932; and the Royal Photography Society London’s
exhibition The Modern Spirit in Photography, 1933, the year
she died. Many portraits by Biermann, starting with those
of her ​​children in this period, are close-ups in which the
human face takes up all the space, therefore emphasizing
the expressive nature of the eyes. See, for example, the
portrait of Roh, published in 60 Fotos, with his glasses and
the reflections in their lenses.23 The presence of glasses (or,
in Germany, a monocle) was tolerated in photographs in
the 1920s, whereas it had been previously avoided: the lens,
including personal optics, became a sign of modernity. 60
Fotos also includes two plates of the same eye, open and
closed (fig. 43).24
Raoul Hausmann’s untitled photograph of February
1931 (fig. 44), although made late in the period under con-
sideration, is particularly interesting because it moves away
from portraits and toward a closer relationship between the fig. 39  László Moholy-Nagy and Lucia Moholy. Untitled (Portrait of László Moholy-
Nagy). 1925. Gelatin silver print, 3 11/16 × 2 ½" (9.3 × 6.3 cm). The Museum of Modern
eye and the lens. Particularly in 1930–31, Hausmann seemed Art, New York. Thomas Walther Collection. The Family of Man Fund (MoMA
very interested in close-ups highlighting the eyes. This 1791.2001). © 2014 Lucia Moholy Estate/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG
Bild-Kunst, Bonn
untitled photograph circumvents that practice somewhat
through the use of an optical tool — a magnifying shaving fig. 40  László Moholy-Nagy. Poster for Schocken Department Store (Variation of The
Law of the Series). 1927. Rephotographed photomontage with letters printed in red ink,
mirror. (It should be noted that there are many examples 8 ½ × 6 ½" (21.8 × 16.6 cm). The J. Paul Getty Museum. © 2014 Artists Rights Society
of the use of glass balls and distorting mirrors in French (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Frizot 16
 skillfully combine the gaze and the camera lens, which
functions either as a third eye or a replacement for the eye:
Citroen has his eyes very close to the lens, Klutsis shows
himself focusing, with his eye surrounded by the frame of
the viewfinder. A portrait of Erich Salomon at home, by Lore
Feininger (1929; fig. 49), only serves to extend this impres-
sion: the lens of his Ermanox, as big as the camera body (an
indication of the camera’s quality), appears like a large eye
on his stomach, much more powerful than the eyes of the
photographer, rimmed by glasses; the analogy of the camera
lens and glasses is also striking here.
The conjunction of the photographer’s eye and his
camera culminates in a double portrait by Maurice Tabard
of himself with Roger Parry, his friend and colleague at
the Deberny et Peignot studio (fig. 50): in front of a mir-
ror, Tabard focuses what appears to be a Leica attached to
an upright stand, pressing the shutter release. Instead of
fig. 41 Aenne Biermann. Right Eye (Rechtes Auge). 1929. Gelatin silver print, 1929–33, Tabard’s eyes, we see two lenses, which are disproportion-
7 × 9 9/16" (17.8 × 23.6 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Thomas Walther
Collection. Gift of Mrs. Flora S. Straus, by exchange (MoMA 1620.2001)
ate relative to one another: the lens taking the shot (which
seems big for the size of the camera, like that of Salomon’s

and German photography around the late 1920s, such

as several Kertész works of 1930–33, including his nude
Distortions). The work features a close-up of one eye seen
in a mirror, which makes it a distorted detail. On the other
hand, the mirror itself is circular, it is in the shape of a pupil
or eyeball, and it has the appearance of a photographic
lens (and is a lens, in fact). Hausmann used this image in
a photomontage (fig. 45), which was reproduced in the
journal A bis Z and in the catalogue for Fotomontage, an
exhibition organized by César Domela-Nieuwenhuis and
mounted in 1931 at the Kunstgewerbemuseum, Berlin. In
the montage he juxtaposed three pictures of a single eye,
two pictures cropped to show both eyes, and a detail of a
mouth. Another untitled photograph, of 1931, presents a
kind of inverted counterpoint — showing a woman’s face
with eyes closed (fig. 46); this picture was also included in
a published photomontage.25
After the close-up portraits focusing on the eyes,
Hausmann’s untitled image combining the eye and mag-
nifying lens leads us to consider several self-portraits of
photographers. The self-portrait, in photography, requires
a special relationship to the camera, the movie camera, and
often the mirror, since mirrors generally aid in shooting
oneself in the process of activating the mechanism. Self-
portraits with a movie camera, a genre born in the late
’20s — see Gustav Klutsis, Untitled (Self-Portrait) (1926;
fig. 47) and Citroen, Self-Portrait (Selbstporträt) (1930;
fig. 48) — are highly characteristic of modernism and the
avant-garde, because they focus on the innovative role of
the photographic tool by having it appear in the picture: the
artist is shown with the tool that enables the representa- figs. 42, 43  Spreads from Aenne Biermann and Franz Roh. Aenne Biermann: 60 Fotos.
tion. In the self-portraits we note that the photographers Berlin: Klinkhardt & Biermann, 1930. The Museum of Modern Art Library, New York

Frizot 17
fig. 44 Raoul Hausmann. Untitled. February 1931. Gelatin silver print, 1931–33, 5 ⅜
× 4 7/16" (13.7 × 11.3 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Thomas Walther
Collection. Gift of Thomas Walther (MoMA 1687.2001). © 2014 Raoul Hausmann/
Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris

fig. 45 Raoul Hausmann. Illustration in “Fotomontage.” A bis Z, no. 16 (May 1931). The
City University of New York. The Graduate Center Library. © 2014 Raoul Hausmann/
Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris

fig. 46  Raoul Hausmann. Untitled. 1931. Gelatin silver print, 1932–33, 6 ¾ × 9 5/16"
(17.2 × 23.6 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Thomas Walther Collection.
Horace W. Goldsmith Fund through Robert B. Menschel (MoMA 1688.2001). © 2014
Raoul Hausmann/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris

Frizot 18
fig. 47  Gustav Klutsis. Untitled (Self-Portrait). 1926. Gelatin silver print, 1926–35, fig. 49  Lore Feininger. Erich Salomon. 1929. Gelatin silver print, 1933–44, 9 ⅛ × 6 ½"
3 ½ × 2 9/16" (8.9 × 6.5 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Thomas Walther (23.2 × 16.5 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Thomas Walther Collection.
Collection. Abbott-Levy Collection funds, by exchange (MoMA 1741.2001). © 2014/ Gift of Thomas Walther (MoMA 1668.2001)
Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
fig. 50  Maurice Tabard. Untitled (Self-Portrait with Roger Parry). 1928–39. Gelatin silver
fig. 48  Paul Citroen. Self-Portrait (Selbstporträt). 1930. Gelatin silver print, 1930–35, print, 9 ¼ × 6 ⅝" (23.5 × 16.8 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Thomas
9 5/16 × 7 1/16" (23.6 × 17.9 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Thomas Walther Collection. Gift of Thomas Walther (MoMA 1879.2001)
Walther Collection. Gift of Thomas Walther (MoMA 1653.2001). © Paul Citroën/Artist
Rights Society (ARS), New York/Pictoright, Amsterdam

Frizot 19
 Ermanox) and the circular viewfinder. Parry stands in the
background looking at the camera, his eyes echoing Tabard’s
mechanical eyes. (We should also note the presence of
the hand, another favorite theme of Tabard’s).
We find the same gaze-lens relationship in four other
portraits of photographers in the Walther Collection — Tina
Modotti’s Edward Weston (1924; fig. 51), Otto Lindig’s Self-
Portrait in Mirror (Selbstporträt im Spiegel) (1925–30; fig. 52),
Werner Rohde’s Untitled (Self-Portrait) (September 1929; fig.
53), and George Hoyningen-Huene’s Henri Cartier-Bresson
(1935; fig. 54) — which all focus on the functionality of the
lens, the way it functions as an “eye” combined with the
photographer’s eye, despite the wide range of instruments
used. Weston makes sure to look in the same direction as
his lens, and Cartier-Bresson, using a Leica, shows the close
physical association between the viewfinder (which is also
equipped with a lens) and his eye, which he theorized in his
fig. 51  Tina Modotti. Edward Weston. February 1924. Gelatin silver print, 1924–26, 7 ⅜
× 8 ⅞" (18.7 × 22.5 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Thomas Walther introduction to The Decisive Moment in 1952.
Collection. Abbott-Levy Collection funds, by exchange (MoMA 1908.2001)
In addition to introducing the evocative power of
the gaze and the eye, Lissitzky’s The Constructor and Kurt
Schwitters feature multiple exposures, overlaid images
created by combining negatives when printing. These tech-
niques were developed after 1918 in the Dada and then
the Constructivist milieus—that is, by protest artists, or
artists who used the graphic arts as propaganda (such as
Lissitzky between 1925 and 1929). However, they were also
very much alive in “experimental” film—art film—such as

fig. 52  Otto Lindig. Self-Portrait in Mirror (Selbstporträt im Spiegel). 1925–30. Gelatin fig. 54  George Hoyningen-Huene. Henri Cartier-Bresson. 1935. Gelatin silver print,
silver print, 5 11/16 × 3 ¾" (14.4 × 9.6 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. 9 11/16 × 7 11/16" (24.6 × 19.5 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Thomas
Thomas Walther Collection. Acquired through the generosity of Peter Norton Walther Collection. Abbott-Levy Collection funds, by exchange (MoMA 1707.2001)
(MoMA 1767.2001)

fig. 53  Werner Rohde. Untitled (Self-Portrait). September 1929. Gelatin silver print,
3 13/16 × 3 ⅛" (9.7 × 8 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Thomas Walther
Collection. Gift of Thomas Walther (MoMA 1839.2001). © 2014 Werner Rohde/
Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Frizot 20
fig. 55  Fernand Léger. Still from Ballet mécanique (Mechanical ballet). 1924. 35mm film, fig. 56  Man Ray (Emmanuel Radnitzky). Still from Emak Bakia. 1926. 35mm film, black
black and white, silent, 12 min. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. © 2014 Artists and white, silent, 15 min. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Acquired from the
Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris artist and Rubenstein, Progress Films. © 2015 Man Ray Trust/Artists Rights Society
(ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris

Abel Gance’s La Roue (The wheel), of 1922; Man Ray’s 1923 More decisive still, the eye is the main motif of the
Le Retour à la raison (Return to reason), which is made up kino-glaz (cine-eye) concept developed by Dziga Vertov in
of photograms; and Fernand Léger and Dudley Murphy’s 1919, when he created the Kino-Oki (the Cine-eyes groups,
Ballet mécanique (Mechanical ballet), of 1924 (fig. 55). And or Kinoki), responsible for spreading his cinematic vision
it turns out that these films, and even some passages with and his use of camera-vérité for revolution and social reform.
overlays, show different types of gazes and eyes in con- He gave the cinema groups this statement in 1926: “Our
stantly changing configurations. Here the gaze has a visual eyes see very little and very badly — so people dreamed up
value not unlike the Cubist deconstruction of the image the microscope to let them see invisible phenomena; they
of the body, through attention to detail: “Some years ago, invented the telescope. . . . Now they have perfected the
we only looked at a figure, a body; now we are interested cinecamera to penetrate more deeply into the visible world,
in the eye of the figure, and examine it attentively,” Léger to explore and record visual phenomena so that what is hap-
declared.26 Man ​​Ray’s Emak Bakia (Leave me alone), of 1926, pening now, which will have to be taken account of in the
includes several face-gaze shots that incite empathy and future, is not forgotten.” Here we see a theory, that of the
emotion. One (fig. 56) features an interesting synthesis supremacy of the camera lens in substituting for the human
between the eye-gaze and the eye-lens, including a movie eye — and in making it stronger and more effective precisely
camera and an eye that is meant to be that of the operator. because the mechanical eye is activated by the biologi-
Returning to El Lissitzky’s The Constructor, it is of note cal eye. The kino-eye apprehends and organizes the world,
that the work has close ties with the Soviet artistic move- compensating for the shortcomings of the human eye: “I am
ments to which Lissitzky belonged, as though in symmetry kino-eye, I create a man more perfect than Adam. . . . I am a
with his German schooling. A highlighting of the human eye mechanical eye. I, a machine, show you the world as only I
first appears in his photomontages, made alongside Dada can see it.”27
and the Bauhaus, in 1922–24. In Rodchenko’s photomontage In 1924 Rodchenko designed two posters for Vertov’s
for Vladimir Mayakovsky’s poem Pro eto (About this), of film Kino-Glaz in which we see a huge eye in close-up. In
1923, the face of Lily Brik, the poet’s muse, appears in a one of them, the eye looks as though it is supported by two
front view close-up, wide-eyed and staring at the viewer film cameras whose lenses are directed downward toward
from the book’s cover. We find that tight framing and the eye of the characters looking up (fig. 60). It’s a very clear
direct gaze into the camera in Rodchenko’s 1924 portrait of graphic expression of the performance of the eye in film,
Mayakovsky (fig. 57) and Rodchenko’s self-portrait from magnifying both the mechanical eye and the biological eye.
the same period (fig. 58), as well as his more composed Vertov’s theory of the kino-eye (which he elaborated in 1926)
portrait of Osip Brik (fig. 59), made for the cover of the culminates with his famous 1929 film The Man with a Movie
journal Lef in 1924, with the journal’s logo painted over one Camera. Repeatedly we see dissolves and double impres-
lens of Brik’s spectacles. (Brik was the journal’s co-editor sions in which the human eye appears, opening and closing,
with Mayakovsky). in the center of the camera lens, which is itself presented

Frizot 21
fig. 57  Aleksandr Rodchenko. Vladimir Mayakovsky. 1924. Gelatin silver print, 11 ½ × fig. 59  Aleksandr Rodchenko. Portrait of Osip Brik. Unpublished illustration for the
6 ½" (29.5 × 16.3 cm). Aleksandr Rodchenko and Varvara Stepanova Archive, Moscow cover of the magazine Lef. 1924. Gouache on gelatin silver print, 9 ¼ × 7 ⅛" (23.6 ×
18 cm). The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Department of Private Collections,
fig. 58  Aleksandr Rodchenko. Self-Portrait. 1924. Glass negative, 3 15/16 × 5 15/16" Moscow
(10 × 15 cm)

at the start of the film with its iris shutter (imitating the
eye’s iris) opening and closing. A short sequence shows the
movie camera on a tripod dancing as if it had three legs. The
metaphor could not be clearer: the lens is a super-eye, the
movie camera on a tripod is a new being whose capabili-
ties are superior to those of humans. The new man who has
come with the revolution will take on a new relationship with
the world by becoming a kino-eye. The final shots show the
motif of the human eye embedded in the camera lens, seen
in close-up, full screen (fig. 61). In 1929 the motif of the eye
became central in the spheres of both photography and
film — represented in Fifo for example, by a graphic photo-
montage by Vertov published in Foto-Auge (fig. 62) and an
advertising label for the photo studio Ohler Stuttgart pub-
lished in the Fifo catalogue (fig. 63).

Conclusion
Ultimately, the human eye is a vehicle of knowledge, whether
it is used to contemplate the world as things happen or,
instead, to look at photographs. The likening of the lens to
the eye implies that the lens has a capacity for vision. That
is, it endows it with a human property that is physiological,
optical, mental, and psychological all at once: vision includes
not only the act of seeing but a mental, imaginary represen-
tation of what is seen that borders on the fantastical. When
Arts et métiers graphiques published its first special issue,
Photographie, in 1930 (praising modernist photography by fig. 60  Aleksandr Rodchenko. Kino-Glaz. 1924. Lithograph, 36 ½ × 27 ½" (92.7 × 69.9
providing a French echo to Fifo), the long essay by journalist cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Given anonymously

Frizot 22
Waldemar George was printed opposite a full-page photo of
a photographic lens. The purpose of the text, which is essen-
tially a historical and journalistic overview of the capabilities
of the new photography and the “acuity of the ‘photographic
eye,’” can be summed up in this sentence: “The shot reveals
to man his own vision.”28
A key element in the definition of the New Vision, the
poster for Fifo (fig. 64), which combines a photograph by
Willi Ruge with modernist typography, is quite revealing of
this conjunction between vision-lens/eye-gaze: one sees a
photographer, photographed by another photographer from
below (an angle characteristic of the New Vision), and the
photographer directs his camera down, while looking in the
same direction himself. We can see both his eyes, wearing
glasses. The camera lens, shaped like a large eye, is directed
toward the viewer. The typography doubles the active pres-
ence of the eyes, with the two O’s in FOTO presented like
two eyes or a pair of glasses.
A significant number of works in the Walther Collection
are very representative of the concern we have outlined.
The representation of the eye and the lens might at first
glance seem marginal to the other themes characterizing
the New Vision: the viewfinder turned in all directions
(high-angle, low-angle, etc.), close-ups, movement, motion
blur, the destabilization of the horizontal view, and the use
of innovative techniques such as the photogram/rayogram.
Our intention here was to show that the New Vision does
not belie its name: it is indeed concerned with vision — that
is, a human, ocular faculty linked to the capacities of the
human eye. And if engaging in the New Vision did include
an apologetics of the photographic lens, no one would forget
that the handling of the camera or movie camera is gov-
erned or directed by the sensations that reach the eye of
the photographer. The supremacy given to the lens led to
a celebration of the eye. The human eye became a photo-
graphic motif because it is the engine of human vision and
photography’s “vision.”
But the eye also transmits feelings, emotions, and deep
sensations, and it transmits them to others — what we call
the gaze, the way an individual captures the reciprocal direc-
tionality of the eyeballs (two eyes look at two eyes). The
media’s coopting of photography through the reproduction
of photographic images was a key factor in the modernity
of the 1920s, and the ability to transmit and communicate
things through the gaze quickly became a privileged motif,
drawing on expressive innovations from the cinema: close-
up shots of the face and gaze, then the camera-gaze — that
fig. 61  Final frame from Dziga Vertov. The Man with a Movie Camera. 1929. 35mm, black
is, the gaze into the lens that is received by the viewer. and white, silent, 65 min. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gosfilmofond, by
That type of expression would grow between 1925 and 1930 exchange
as one of photography’s modernist elements, though the fig. 62  Dziga Vertov. Photomontage. In Franz Roh and Jan Tschichold. Foto-Auge: 76
innovation was not really stressed as such. Fotos der Zeit (Photo-eye: 76 photos of the time). Stuttgart: F. Wedekind, 1929. The
Museum of Modern Art Library, New York
Another, perhaps unexpected, dimension also stands
out: the impact of the silent films of the 1920s on the most fig. 63  Advertising label for the Ohler photography studio. In Gustaf Stotz, et al.
Internationale Ausstellung des Deutschen Werkbunds Film und Foto (International
advanced photographic work. The convergence of photog- exhibition of the Deutscher Werkbund Film und Foto). Stuttgart: Deutscher Werkbund,
raphy and cinema was in evidence in Fifo in 1929, but in 1929. The Museum of Modern Art Library, New York

Frizot 23
many cases it remained theoretical and is difficult to spot
in the photographic images themselves. The interest in the
eye, the camera, the lens, and the expressive potential of
the gaze is no stranger to the cinema; film is, most likely,
one of the key sources of photographic motivation in these
works. Here we have had some opportunity to highlight
these relationships and influences, but it is a topic that
requires further investigation.

Translated from the French by Sharon Bowman

fig. 64  Poster for the exhibition Film und Foto, Stuttgart. 1929. Offset lithograph, 33
× 23 ⅛" (84 × 58.5 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of The Lauder
Foundation, Leonard and Evelyn Lauder Fund

Notes

I would like to thank Mitra 3. See Klaus Pollmeier, “El Multilayer Photographs: A 7. See Simon Beiling, “El Lissitzky,”
Abbaspour for welcoming and Lissitzky’s Multilayer Photo- Technical Analysis.” For the in Anne Umland, Adrian
assisting me during my stay at graphs: A Technical Analysis,” motif’s reuse for Arkhitektura, see Sudhalter, and Scott Gerson,
The Museum of Modern Art on this website. A version of Tupitsyn, p. 97. For the Pelikan eds., Dada in the Collection of The
for this study and Maria Morris that study was published in poster, see Tupitsyn, p. 96. Museum of Modern Art (New
Hambourg for the final revision Margarita Tupitsyn, El Lissitzky: York: The Museum of Modern
of this text for publication. Jenseits der Abstraktion, exh. 6. The two negatives are known Art, 2008), pp. 205–08.
cat. (Munich: Schirmer/Mosel; from prints at the Sprengel
1. See Michel Frizot, “El ojo humano Hannover: Sprengel Museum), Museum Hannover; see Tupitsyn, 8. Herbert Molderings uses the
y la camara oscura: El modelo 1999. See also Leah Dickerman, El Lissitzky, p. 86. The second title “Paul Citroen with Warlike
biologico y el imperativo tecnico,” “El Lissitzky’s Camera Corpus,” in is itself derived from a collage/ Countenance” in his Umbo: Otto
El Imaginario fotografico (Mexico Nancy Perloff and Brian Reed, double impression of geometric Umbehr 1902–1980 (Düsseldorf:
City: Serieve, 2009), pp. 95–108. eds., Situating El Lissitzky: Vitebsk, and circular elements, indicating Richter Verlag, 1995), plate 10.
Berlin, Moscow (Los Angeles: that the Walther Collection
2. In 1924 El Lissitzky went to Getty Research Institute, 2003). photogram is the result of several 9. For more on Citroen’s early
Switzerland to recover from preparatory works and not of career, see Herbert Molderings,
tuberculosis, after working in 4. See Tupitsyn, El Lissitzky, p. 78. two negatives of faces and other “Paul Citroen and Photography:
Hannover. He returned to elements put together in a single The Beginnings in Berlin,” in
Moscow in 1925. He later trav- 5. For the self-portrait, see overlay. For more information Ingeborg Leijerzapf, Herbert
eled to Europe for the installation ibid. For the intermediate print on the construction of this Molderings, and Flip Bool,
of exhibitions in which Soviet and the hand-and-compass motif, print, see Pollmeier, “El Lissitzky’s eds., Paul Citroen 1896–1983
participation was much noted (in see ibid, pp. 77 and 79; see also Multilayer Photographs: A (Amsterdam: Uitgeverij, 1998).
Dresden, Cologne, and Stuttgart). Pollmeier, “El Lissitzky’s Technical Analysis.”

Frizot 24
10. “For a whole fortnight, they 15. The negatives are in the photography around 1930. See,
photographed each other.” André Kertész Archives. for example, “Das Gesicht als
Molderings, “Paul Citroen and Landschaft” (The face as land-
Photography,” p. 12. 16. Van Deren Coke, Avantgarde scape), UHU 5, no. 5 (February
Fotografie in Deutschland (Munich: 1929): 42–43, which includes
11. The contrast could have been Schirmer/Mosel, 1982). four detail photographs by P. E.
produced by the poorly mastered Hahn (forehead, nose, eyebrows,
use of X-ray film, with its dif- 17. Lucia Moholy, A Hundred and mouth).
ferent technical specifications. Years of Photography, 1839–1939
See Herbert Molderings, Otto (Harmondsworth, England: 25. “Formdialektik der fotografie,”
Umbehr — Umbo, 1902–1980 Penguin, 1939), p. 166. A bis Z, no. 2 (1931).
(Düsseldorf: Richter Verlag,
1995), p. 59: “Dadurch dass et das 18. Kelly Wise, ed., Lotte Jacobi 26. “Il y a quelques années, on ne
Gesicht frontal beleuchtete und (Danbury, N.H.: Addison House, considérait qu’une figure, qu’un
die Grautöne durch überstrahlung 1978). corps, désormais on s’intéresse
ausschaltete, gelang es ihm, die et on examine curieusement
Physiognomonie des Modells auf 19. For these pictures, see ibid. l’oeil de cette figure.” Fernand
ihre graphischen Ausdrucksformen Léger, quoted in Laurent Le Bon,
zu reduzieren: die Proportionen, die 20. This photograph is repro- ed., Chefs-d’oeuvre? (Paris: Centre
Unrisslinien, die dominierenden duced, inverted left to right, on Pompidou Metz, 2010), p. 312.
Hell-Dunkel-Massen. Zu demselben the cover of Agnès de Gouvion
Zweck benuzte er gelegentlich Saint-Cyr, Maurice Tabard, Photo 27. Dziga Vertov, quoted in
Röntgen-Fime als extrahartes Poche no. 93 (Paris: Nathan, Yuri Tsivian, ed., Lines of
Negativmaterial.” Note 37: “Der 2002). Resistance: Dziga Vertov and the
Vater eines Freundes besass eine Twenties, trans. Julian Graffy
Fabrik, die Kartonnagen fur Agfa- 21. Tabard was probably selected (Gemona, Udine: Le Giornate del
Röntgenfilme herstellte. Von ihm late for Fifo, since he is listed in Cinema Muro, 2004); repr. in
habe ich eine Packung mit 50 the first supplement to the cata- Michael Levenson, “Art, Politics
Röntgenfilme 13x18 erhalten. So logue (Nachtrag), unlike Kertész, and the Kino-Eye: Vertov’s The
entstanden meine Porträts.” See for example. Man with the Movie Camera,”
also Umbo im Gesprach mit Modernist Cultures, vol. 5, no. 1
Heinrich Riebesehl (Hannover: 22. The second portrait (teary (May 2010): 47–64.
Tonbandkassete, 1973). eyed) is now in the collection
of the Musée National d’Art 28. Waldemar George,
12. Molderings, “Paul Citroen and Moderne, Paris. It was published “Photographie: Vision du monde,”
Photography,” p. 14. in M. Houlette and M. Ponsa, Arts et métiers graphiques, no. 16
Paris, capitale photographique (1930).
13. “What does link Citroen’s 1920–1940: Collection Christian
portraits with those produced Bouqueret, exh. cat. (Paris: Jeu de
by Umbo during their fortnight Paume, 2009), p. 116.
of joint experimentation in
December 1926 is the directness 23. Aenne Biermann and Franz
and spontaneity with which the Roh, Aenne Biermann: 60 Fotos
models look at us out of the (Berlin: Klinkhardt & Biermann),
picture.” Ibid., p. 20. 1930.

14. These pictures are in 24. In general, details of the face

the André Kertész Archives, (eye, nose, mouth, and ear),
Médiathèque de l’Architecture designating the four senses (pos-
et du Patrimoine, Ministère de sibly rounded out by the hand,
la Culture, Paris. for touch), were prevalent in

Citation:
Michel Frizot. “The Poetics of Eye and Lens.” In Mitra Abbaspour, Lee
Ann Daffner, and Maria Morris Hambourg, eds. Object:Photo. Modern
Photographs: The Thomas Walther Collection 1909–1949. An Online Project of
The Museum of Modern Art. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2014.
http://www.moma.org/interactives/objectphoto/assets/essays/Frizot.pdf.

Frizot 25