Paul Outerbridge

Paul Outerbridge s provocative nudes and pioneering color.Whether in his sumptuous images for advertising or his soft-hued nudes, Paul Outerbridge (1896 1958) was an alchemist of desire. Color was integral to his aesthetic allure, embracing the complex tri-color-carbro process to create a seductive surface of texture and tone. His quest was for artificial paradises a perfection of form, with a surreal edge.This concise monograph introduces Outerbridge s unique aesthetic and its commercial and artistic trajectory, from his professional peak as New York s highest-paid commercial photographer through to his retreat to Hollywood in the 1940s after a scandal over his erotic photography. With key examples from his oeuvre, the book explores Outerbridge s innovative style through Cubist still life images, magazine photographs, and his controversial nudes, as well as his interaction with other avant-garde photographers, such as Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, and Man Ray. Along the way, we recognize Outerbridge s particular ability to transform everyday objects into a quasi-abstract composition and his pioneering role in championing the expressionistic, as much as commercial, potential of color photographs.