Collection of Pawel Barchan (1876–1942)

By descent

Sotheby's Belgravia, 27 March 1981, Lot 549

While Pierre Dubreuil spent the early part of his career as a devoted Phot💫o-Secessionist, aligning himself with Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, and F. Holland Day, by the latter part of the 1920s and through the 1930s as interest in Pictorialism waned, his work began to incorporate elements of Surrealism, particularly after he mo🐬ved to Belgium in 1924. 

Dubreuil authority Tom Jacobson notes many of the photographer’s pictures are best understood in the context of their titles. The title of the present work, Antithèse (Antithesis) refers to an opposition, aꦕ concept reflected through Dubreuil’s masterful composition of straight nails that gracefully curve despite their rigid, linear form.  The circular nail heads reflect in the shadow of the wrench, creating a visual tension for which Dubreuil is well-known. Many of ♈Dubreuil’s works from this period feature everyday objects in abstracted close-ups, cleverly utilizing scale to incorporate lyricism, playfulness, and fantasy. 

This photograph offered here is a rare gelatin silver print, originally from the collection of Pawel Barchan, who operated a photography agency in Paris prior to World War II and knew Dubreuil personally. Although Dubreuil exhibited widely during his lifetime, few of his photographs are extant.  Amid financial distress in the early 1940s, Dubreuil sold his negatives and many of his prints to the Gevaert photographic company in Belgium, which was subseq🌠uently destroyed by bombing during the Second World War.