Eye and Camera: Red and Black

Artist John Piper (British, 1903–1992)

PrinterPrinted by Kelpra Studio, London

Date1972

MediumScreenprint on paper

DimensionsImage: 18 15/16 x 27 7/16 inches (48.1 x 69.7 cm)
Sheet: 22 11/16 x 30 1/2 inches (57.6 x 77.5 cm)

ClassificationsPrint

Credit LineGift of Robert Anthoine

Object number1980.48.30

Collections

MODERN & CONTEMPORARY
WORKS ON PAPER

Label TextJohn Piper was a painter, publisher, and theatre and stained glass window designer who also explored experimental practices in printmaking. His Pop-inspired Eye and Camera series combines the artist’s interest in representational art with more abstract forms of expression. This series of semi-nude photographs of the artist’s wife plays with a variety of techniques and media to obscure the image and disrupt its integrity. Piper used collage, gouache, marbling, and drawing to unravel details within each photograph. In Eye and Camera: Multifigure (top left), several reproductions of a black and white photo of a woman’s back are distributed over a background of blues, purples, and oranges. In some instances, parts of the woman’s body are filled in with black, allowing the negative white space to suggest form (and vice versa). Piper also inserted negative versions of the photograph and simple outline drawings, scratched out to varying degrees. The omission of features and details throughout the print reduce the body to its essential components. Here, through the printmaking process, photography exists not as a true representation of reality, but another art form open to manipulation and subjective interpretation.