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Lucy

Photograph
2018 (made)

Italian artist Maurizio Anzeri lives and works in London. He uses delicate embroidery on vintage photographs that he finds at flea markets, creating otherworldly portraits and surreal landscapes. The subjects in Anzeri’s found photographs are transformed by his threadwork; the vintage photographs often appear at odds with the sharp lines and silky shimmer of the colourful threads. Through this combination of media, Anzeri’s works create a dimension where past and present converge.

Anzeri’s embroidered, tactile photographs embody three- dimensional sculptural characteristics, prompting him to describe them as ‘photo-sculptures’

Object details

Category
Object type
TitleLucy (assigned by artist)
Materials and techniques
Hand embroidered photograph
Brief description
Photograph by Maurizio Anzeri, 'Lucy', 2018
Physical description
Photograph of a woman wearing a black dress and a pearl necklace. Her face has been embroidered with an oblong shape in yellow thread on the left side, with a small circle in the centre to show the left hand eye. There is a smaller black semi circle on the right side of the sitter's face, with three vertical gold lines. At the bottom of the semi circle is a gold strip running down the bottom centre of the picture.
Dimensions
  • Image height: 292mm
  • Image width: 444mm
Gallery label
(2021)
Known and Strange: Photographs from the Collection (2021-2022)
Photography Centre, Gallery 101


Maurizio Anzeri (born 1969)
Lucy
2018

Anzeri’s work animates previously discarded and personal images from the past to create what he describes as ‘photo-sculptures’. He starts with vintage photographs that he unearths at flea markets and uses traditional embroidery and sewing techniques to mask the faces of the people in the photos. Contrasting shapes of brightly coloured needlework transform the images. The threads are often tightly woven and layered to form a web that reveals only the eye of the subject, which unnervingly meets our own gaze.

Embroidery on gelatin silver print
Purchase funded by the Photographs Acquisition Group
Museum no. E.709-2019
Credit line
Purchase funded by the Photographs Acquisition Group
Summary
Italian artist Maurizio Anzeri lives and works in London. He uses delicate embroidery on vintage photographs that he finds at flea markets, creating otherworldly portraits and surreal landscapes. The subjects in Anzeri’s found photographs are transformed by his threadwork; the vintage photographs often appear at odds with the sharp lines and silky shimmer of the colourful threads. Through this combination of media, Anzeri’s works create a dimension where past and present converge.

Anzeri’s embroidered, tactile photographs embody three- dimensional sculptural characteristics, prompting him to describe them as ‘photo-sculptures’
Collection
Accession number
E.709-2019

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Record createdJune 3, 2019
Record URL
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