AIPAD 2016

At the 2016 AIPAD Photography Show, Bruce Silverstein Gallery is proud to present Triumph of the Egg, featuring works of the same title by two great masters of the photographic medium, Edward Steichen and Paul Outerbridge.

Edward Steichen’s thoroughly modern 1921 image of an egg hovering over a dark cylinder was influenced by the science and literature of the time, namely new research on Einstein’s theory of relativity and Sherwood Anderson’s collection of short stories, The Triumph of the Egg, published in the same year.

An artistic and commercial rival of Steichen’s, Paul Outerbridge responded with a technically complex, geometrically abstract interpretation of a triumphant egg balanced on the point of a triangular pyramid in 1932. The only known print of this image, Outerbridge’s Triumph of the Egg is a competitive retort to Steichen’s photograph.

Presented in conversation with these triumphal prints by Steichen and Outerbridge, we offer works by 20th century masters Constantin Brancusi (La Muse Endormie II, 1920), Edward Weston (Anita Brenner, Mexico, 1924), and Josef Sudek (Glasses and Eggs, 1951), as well as contemporary artist Brea Souders (Teeth and Shell, 2012), that echo the eternal form of the egg, a classic symbol of spring and rebirth.

With additional works by: Margaret Bourke-White, Walker Evans, Mishka Henner, Todd Hido, André Kertész, Dora Maar, Shinichi Maruyama, Alexander Rodchenko, Keith A. Smith, Rosalind Fox Solomon, Frederick Sommer, Penelope Umbrico, Michael Wolf, and Francesca Woodman

Established in 2001, Bruce Silverstein Gallery’s principle focus is the representation of an international roster of contemporary artists as well as established artists of great influence. The gallery is committed to discovering, examining, and contextualizing known and unknown artwork by modern masters as well as innovative artists of today. The gallery maintains an in-depth inventory of masterworks of the photographic medium and strives to provide a venue for dialogue across all art forms.