Collection Guide
Light can literally illumine a commonplace object;
model and outline form;
bend and follow curves or straight lines;
pass through openings and transparent objects to create wonderful patterns;
create new and exciting shapes when reflected from surfaces which distort familiar objects;
and dramatically emphasize textures.
With all of these fascinating possibilities, the creative photographer never lacks inspiration or subjects for photographs with inner vitality and interest.Carlotta Corpron
Although Corpron photographed seriously for fewer than 20 years, this period of focused experimentation yielded six distinct series. Each series develops from a different approach to light, which remained a central theme of her career, from its effect on natural and geometric forms to experimental processes like solarization and combination printing.
Nature Studies
The earliest group of works, the Nature Studies (1930s–48), grew out of the work Corpron had done while teaching a textile design class at the University of Cincinnati. Hoping to encourage her students to think more creatively, Corpron took images of interesting designs found in nature. She said she had always had a vivid imagination—the kind that saw faces and patterns in natural forms—and many of her photographs document these discoveries. But they were important to her first and foremost for their overall beauty and design, and the ways they caused viewers to see the subject afresh. Some of Corpron’s Nature Studies include technical experimentation, especially solarization, which reverses an image’s positive and negative values, which Corpron saw as one way to use light to reveal the structure of natural forms.
Nature Studies
Slide Controls
Slides
Carlotta M. Corpron
Solarized Calla Lilies, 1948Gelatin silver print
P1980.31
Henry Holmes Smith
Dancers, 1952Gelatin silver print
P1991.19
Aaron Siskind
Seaweed, ca. 1947Gelatin silver print
P1997.45
Light Drawings
In Corpron’s Light Drawings series (1940–43), her camera became a creative tool for producing photographs that treat light itself as the medium: images that have been compared to drawings with a pen dipped in light. This was a strategy many mid-century photographers were using, as cameras with shutter speeds fast enough to catch the elusive “drawing” became more widely available. Corpron visited carnival midways in Dallas and Daytona Beach and captured images of the lit-up attractions while swinging or moving her camera. Some of her more abstract images became visual metaphors; on the back of a print called Commentary on Civilization she wrote, “Most people go around in circles, a few have luminosity, and some are individuals and can move away from the crowd.”
Light Drawings
Slide Controls
Slides
Carlotta M. Corpron
Commentary on Civilization, ca. 1942Gelatin silver print
P1985.2.13
Harry Callahan
Camera Movement on Flashlight, Chicago, ca. 1949Gelatin silver print
P1985.39.3
Barbara Morgan
Pure Energy and Neurotic Man, 1941Gelatin silver print
P1974.21.16
Light Patterns
For her next series, Light Patterns (ca. 1944–45), Corpron was influenced by the approach taken to photography at the School of Design in Chicago, brought to Denton in the 1940s by visiting professors László Moholy-Nagy and György Kepes. She became especially close to Kepes—for several months they met weekly to discuss photography. He suggested she experiment with a light box, a controlled photographic space invented by Nathan Lerner at the School of Design. Corpron took his advice, shining flashlights and low-wattage light bulbs through holes in a two-by-three-foot box with light-modulating forms (mostly shapes cut out of white paper) inside. She spent hours exploring the forms before making a single photograph, observing the effect of brightness, angle, and reflection.
Light Patterns
Slide Controls
Slides
Carlotta M. Corpron
Bisymmetric Design, 1944Gelatin silver print
P1981.32
Nathan Lerner
Light Volume, 1937Gelatin silver print
P1978.20
Space Compositions
In her Space Compositions series (ca. 1945–50), Corpron studied light’s ability to create illusions of space and depth on still lifes, also similar to work happening at the Institute of Design, which had three areas of concentration: light, architecture, and product. She would arrange commonplace items, like seashells and glass paperweights, with reflective surfaces, like mirrors or a curved ferrotype plate, to create reflections and spatial illusions. She found special inspiration in eggs, which in her images seem to stretch, bend, and stand on end. Corpron later explained, “I didn’t plan these pictures. I didn’t plan to do anything but let the light guide me. It was more or less an exploration into the unknown.”jump to citation[x]
Citations
- ↵ Corpron, quoted in Marni Sandweiss, Carlotta Corpron: Designer with Light (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980), 15.
Space Compositions
Slide Controls
Slides
Carlotta M. Corpron
Eggs Encircled, 1948Gelatin silver print
P1987.5.3
Carlotta M. Corpron
Glass Cubes and Patterned Glass, ca. 1945Gelatin silver print
P1981.35.4
György Kepes
[Untitled], 1939-1940Gelatin silver print
P2019.115
Light Follows Form
In her series Light Follows Form (ca. 1946), Corpron took her light experiments out of the controlled environment of light boxes and studio still lifes. Having asked her students to use an old plaster cast of a Greek head as the subject for their photographs, she was disappointed by the results, which she called “atrocious.” The students merely decorated the sculpture—“They put a rose in its hair and then they put scarfs around it”—without approaching the assignment photographically.jump to citation[x] So Corpron took matters into her own hands and showed her students how they could take a simple subject and make light function as the primary element. She placed the plaster head in a darkened room and manipulated the Venetian blinds covering the windows to control the flow of light. She demonstrated to her students how light can transform an object, realizing herself that the entire world could be conceived of as a collection of light-modulating surfaces.
Citations
- ↵ Ibid., 13.
Light Follows Form
Slide Controls
Slides
Carlotta M. Corpron
Light Follows Form of Greek Head, 1946Gelatin silver print
P1985.2.20
Carlotta M. Corpron
Light Follows Form, 1946Gelatin silver print
P1981.35.5
Fluid Light Designs
These same Venetian blinds were also the origin point of Corpron’s final series, Fluid Light Designs (ca. 1947). She was inspired by the abstract designs of a sliver of light as it shone through the blinds and then through the rippled plastic wrapped around a print on a nearby table. This series is her most abstract and also includes experiments with technique, including combination printing, in which Corpron combined multiple negatives into a single image to create more complex compositions. Just a few years later the most prolific part of her artistic career came to an end, but she continued to encourage photographic experimentation with her students until she retired in 1968.
Fluid Light Designs
Slide Controls
Slides
Carlotta M. Corpron
Fluid Light Design, ca. 1946Gelatin silver print
P1985.2.3
Carlotta M. Corpron
Light Creates Bird Symbols, 1946 or 1948Gelatin silver print
P1985.2.9
