Photograph thumbnail 1
On display
Image of Gallery in South Kensington

Photograph

20th century (made)
Artist/Maker
Moffat, Curtis (photographer)

20th century gelatin silver print by Curtis Moffat depicting two men one standing on grass one leaping onto mattress 2 (Board 11).

Object details

Object type
Photograph
Brief description
20th century gelatin silver print by Curtis Moffat depicting two men one standing on grass one leaping onto mattress 2 (Board 11).
Gallery label
(20/11/2012)
Moffat’s snaps of what appear to be friends and family engaged in outdoor leisure activities reflect the ‘healthy body culture’ of the late 1920s and early ’30s. They show an eye for the quirky, witty and the Surreal.
(11 03 2014)
Gallery 100, ‘History of photography’, 2012-2013, label texts :

Curtis Moffat (1887 – 1949)
Untitled Studies
About 1925 – 30

Moffat’s snaps of what appear to be friends and
family engaged in outdoor leisure activities show
an eye for the quirky, witty and the surreal. A woman
hangs from a locomotive, a man converses with a
mannequin and an outdoor table setting shows an
apparently severed head as its centrepiece.

Gelatin silver prints
Given by Penelope Smail
Museum nos. E.987, 1011, 1018, 1038, 1046, 1057, 1060, 1097, 1219, 1260,
1271, 1279, 1285, 1287, 1419, 1421-2007
(May 2023)
Moffat was an American artist who worked in Paris with the Surrealist Man Ray. He later set up his own photographic studio and interior design company in London in the 1920s. His snapshots, some of which were used in advertising, capture the dynamic Modernist machine age. Speeding vehicles, stylish figures and fleeting glimpses give an impression of
life on the move.
Credit line
Given by Penelope Smail
Collection
Prints, Drawings & Paintings Collection
Accession number
E.1421-2007

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Record createdJune 30, 2009
Record URL
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O509202/photograph-moffat-curtis/
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