Acquired from the estate of the artist The collection of Tom Jacobson, San Diego
Catalogue Essay
This gorgeous x-ray photograph of the inner workings of a Rolleiflex Camera, a camera championed by photographers such as Diane Arbus, was created by the nuclear physicist, Dr. Paul Fries, who headed the industrial x-ray division of Siemens in Erlangen, Germany. Fries had access to one of the few x-ray machines capable of penetrating metal objects which, inspired by the post–war "Subjektive Fotographie" movement headed by Otto Steinert, he used to create a body of exquisite images from 1951-1955 that only the "unseen" light of an x-ray could produce. This is one of only two known prints of this image. The other known print of this image is later, probably late 1950's or early 1960's and smaller in format.