{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O128502"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O128502/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2007BM0671/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2007BM0671/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"low","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2007BM0671","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London/Herbert Bayer","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2006BK4234","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London/Herbert Bayer","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":null},"record":{"systemNumber":"O128502","accessionNumber":"CIRC.651-1969","objectType":"Photograph","titles":[{"title":"Humanly Impossible","type":"assigned by artist"},{"title":"Auto-portrait","type":"generic title"}],"summaryDescription":"Herbert Bayer was one of the leading figures in the Bauhaus movement in Germany and throughout his career was a highly influential graphic designer and artist.  Bayer produced some straight photographs, highlighting the abstract structures and sculptural qualities of things, but was never interested in the technical side of photography and so his exploration of straight photography was limited.  He left the Bauhaus in 1928 and established himself as a leading designer.  It was at this stage that he took and interest in photomontage. He was partly responsible for establishing photomontage as a key commercial visual style in the 1930s.","physicalDescription":"Black and white photo montage of a man looking into the mirror, one hand on his head, the other hand holding a chunk of arm.","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Bayer, Herbert","id":"A11934"},"association":{"text":"photographer","id":"AAT25687"},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"photographic paper","id":"AAT14190"},{"text":"printer's ink","id":"AAT187371"},{"text":"paper","id":"x30308"}],"techniques":[{"text":"gelatin silver process","id":"AAT139114"},{"text":"","id":""}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Gelatin-silver print and photomontage","categories":[{"text":"Photographs","id":"THES48910"},{"text":"Prints","id":"THES48903"}],"styles":[{"text":"modern","id":"AAT121793"},{"text":"Photo-montage","id":"x36157"},{"text":"art photography","id":"AAT178594"}],"collectionCode":{"text":"PDP","id":"THES48595"},"images":["2007BM0671","2006BK4234"],"imageResolution":"low","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"LVLF","id":"THES49656"},"free":"","case":"X","shelf":"905","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"photograph","id":"AAT46300"}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Berlin","id":"x28746"},"association":{"text":"photographed","id":"x30151"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"1932","earliest":"1932-01-01","latest":"1932-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""},{"date":{"text":"1969","earliest":"1969-01-01","latest":"1969-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":"Series produced"}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"Acquired from Marlborough Fine Art, London in 1969.","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Length","value":"32.7","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"sheet","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"26","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"sheet","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[{"content":"12/40 Bayer [signature] 32","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"Front of sheet below printed image"}],"objectHistory":"","historicalContext":"Herbert Bayer was one of the leading figures in the Bauhaus movement in Germany and throughout his career was a highly influential graphic designer and artist.  Bayer began to experiment with photography while he was teaching advertising, typography and layout at the Bauhaus school in Dessau.  He produced some straight photographs, highlighting the abstract structures and sculptural qualities of things, but was never interested in the technical side of photography and so his exploration of straight photography was limited.  He left the Bauhaus in 1928 and established himself as a leading designer.  It was at this stage that he took and interest in photomontage.  He used the technique for his own artistic work but also in advertising work, where he was partly responsible for establishing photomontage as a key commercial visual style in the 1930s.  His main body of photographic work was produced in the late 1920s and the 1930s, after which he continued to develop other areas of visual design.","briefDescription":"Photograph by Herbert Bayer, 'Humanly Impossible (Self-Portrait)', gelatin silver print, 1932","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Wood, Ghislaine, ed. <u>Surreal Things. Surrealism and Design</u> London : V&A Publications, 2007. 362 p. : col. Ill. ISBN: 978 1 85177 500 2 (HBK) 978 1 85177 501 9 (PBK)"}],"production":"Attribution note: ‘Montage…is the combination of diverse photographic images to produce a new work.  The combination is often achieved by re-photographing the mounted elements or by multiple darkroom exposures.  In the finished work the actual physical edges become inconspicuous.  The artistic result often tends towards the surreal rather than the abstract.’\r\n\r\nGordon Baldwin, Looking at Photographs, J. Paul Getty Museum, 1991","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[{"text":"hands","id":"x31539"},{"text":"arm (body part)","id":"x38587"}],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[{"text":"<b>Gallery 100, 2016-17:</b>\n\nHerbert Bayer (1900–85)\r\n‘Humanly Impossible (Self-Portrait)’\r\nFrom the series ‘Man and Dream’\r\n1932\n\r\nThis photomontage reflects the humour of the Dada movement and the Surrealists’ interest in dreams. Bayer’s haunting self-portrait was made during a turbulent period during his life. The artist views his reflection with horror, as the sponge he holds morphs into a slice of marble that seems to be cut from his shoulder.\n\r\nGelatin silver print\r\nMuseum no. Circ.651-1969","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null}},{"text":"Unspecified exhibition label:\r\n\r\n'This was part of a picture story planned by Bayer but left uncompleted after 11 images were made. Bayer described the photomontage technique as: 'photos, cut out and reassembled, sometimes retouched and the finished montage re-photographed.' Bayer taught at the Bauhaus and revolutionised photography, graphic design and exhibition design.'","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null}},{"text":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null}},{"text":"From exhibition 'Towards a Bigger Picture', 1987. Excerpt from longer joint label with Joseph Breitenbach's 'We New Yorkers':\r\n\r\nArtists have historically been concerned with the physiognomy of the face and body as the clue to the content of tyhe mind. Here the fleeting, fluid succession of expression was regarded as an index of the intellect and emotion. Such investigation encompassed both the individual subject and the species as a whole. In Herbert Bayer's 'Self-Portrait' and Josef Breitenbach's 'We New Yorkers', we see this concern to look beyond appearances continued, yet inflected and transformed bya permissive modern aesthetic that sanctions the manipulation and distortion of observed reality so that artistic insight may be expressed.\r\n\r\nBayer's picture is a surrealistic parody of the high seriousness traditionally accorded the self-portrait. Here self-examination reveals nothing of the condition of the artistic mind, but only the discovery that the creator has become his creation, not flesh and blood but stone. Such images were intended to provoke the unconscious into a more active role in the economy of daily mental life, a role idealised as a superior consciousness by Andre Breton in the Surrealist Manifesto of 1924.\r\n","date":{"text":"1987","earliest":"1987-01-01","latest":"1987-12-31"}}],"partNumbers":["CIRC.651-1969"],"accessionNumberNum":"651","accessionNumberPrefix":"CIRC","accessionYear":1969,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2025-04-09","recordCreationDate":"2006-10-11","availableToBook":false}}