Lucy
Photograph
2018 (made)
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’
Anzeri’s embroidered, tactile photographs embody three- dimensional sculptural characteristics, prompting him to describe them as ‘photo-sculptures’
Object details
| Category | |
| Object type | |
| Title | Lucy (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 |
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| Gallery label | 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
(2021) |
| 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 created | June 3, 2019 |
| Record URL |
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