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Flatirons for Shoe Manufacture

Creator

German Photographer · 1897–1966

Artist

In 1924 Albert Renger-Patzsch got his start as a professional photographer by making the images for the first two books in a series titled *Die Welt der Pflanze* (The World of Plants). His work went uncredited, but two years later his name appeared on another book, *Das Chorgestühl von Kappenberg* (The Choir Stalls of Cappenberg). He soon became an independent photographer and exhibited his photog

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Date: 1928
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Culture: German
Department: Photographs
Institution: Getty Museum

*We still don't sufficiently appreciate the opportunity to capture the magic of material things. The structure of wood, stone, and metal can be shown with a perfection beyond the means of painting... To do justice to modern technology's rigid linear structure... only photography is capable of that.* So wrote Albert Renger-Patzsch in 1927 about the camera's innate ability to depict the Industrial Age. Here he studied the materials of identically shaped, finished wooden handles and industrially produced steel heads, while also representing the flatirons as an army of tools standing at attention like bowling pins. Renger-Patzsch's photograph celebrates the beauty of the commonplace object.

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