Metal
(Métal)
(1928)
Medium
64 black and white collotype plates, letterpress on paper, black cloth-backed paper-covered board portfolio with ribbons
Measurements
30.5 × 23.5 × 2.5 cm (overall)
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2023
© Estate of Germaine Krull
Gallery location
Special Exhibitions Gallery
Ground Level, NGV International
About this work
One of the most significant modernist photobooks of the 1920s, Germaine Krull’s Metal portfolio comprises sixty-four images printed on individual sheets, a title page and a three-page preface by the French writer and journalist Florent Fels. Krull photographed iron structures such as cranes and transport bridges in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Marseille and Saint-Malo, as well as the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Krull showcases the beauty and innovation of the structures, conveying the sense of awe that accompanied the rapid industrialisation of the time. The presentation of the photographs – loose, to be arranged however the viewer chooses – is also radical, allowing for endless interpretations.