ROGER PARRY (1905–1977)

Untitled (Photogram), 1930s
Gelatin silver print
Lent by David Raymond, New York

Like surrealist art in other media, surrealist photography favored psychological complexity over pictorial clarity. Signs of the surrealist imagination at work include staged constructions, forced perspectives, multiple exposures, and darkroom manipulations.

With encouragement from Stieglitz, Julien Levy opened his gallery specifically to present an alternative to the sharply focused, static compositions of the American school of, what Stieglitz called, “straight” photography—a decision that placed Levy at the adventurous margins of the art world.

In this untitled photogram, Roger Parry, whose “straight” photographs often reveal a surreal sense of mystery, experiments with nontraditional techniques. Without using a camera or a lens, he developed this image by placing objects on top of a piece of film coated with light-sensitive materials, and then exposing the composition to light. Where the objects cover the film, the paper remains unexposed and light in tone; where they do not, the film darkens. If the object is translucent, midtones appear.