Untitled
- Artist: Franciszka Themerson
- Artist: Stefan Themerson
- Date: 1930, printed later
- Medium: Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper
- Dimensions: image: 192 x 245 mm
- Museum: Tate Modern
- Collection record: Tate Modern website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is the “Untitled” by Franciszka Themerson and Stefan Themerson, a black‑and‑white gelatin silver print from 1930, printed a few years later. In the late 1920s the husband‑and‑wife team began to experiment with camera‑less photography, creating what they called “photographed photograms.” They laid objects—light, liquid, even plant branches—directly on a glass shelf and moved lights above it. Stefan, lying under the glass, captured the arrangement from below with a camera, producing a negative that could then be printed multiple times. The result is an abstract composition of shifting shadows and shapes, a visual echo of the objects’ movement. The Themersons were key figures in the inter‑war avant‑garde, pushing the technical boundaries of photography alongside contemporaries like Man Ray and Moholy‑Nagy. This print, one of three from that series, exemplifies their innovative blend of experimentation and reproducibility.
See it in person
Untitled is in the collection of Tate Modern on Bankside, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
