
Not on display
- Artist
- Jean Crotti 1878–1958
- Original title
- Portrait d'Edison
- Medium
- Gouache, watercolour and graphite on paper
- Dimensions
- Support: 489 × 645 mm
frame: 625 × 870 × 30 mm - Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Purchased 1978
- Reference
- T02315
Display caption
A strand of Dada production was associated with an ironic and subversive view of science.
Jean Crotti and Suzanne Duchamp infused much of their work with this attitude, which brought them close to Marcel Duchamp and Francis Picabia. Crotti’s Portrait of Edison may both celebrate and subvert the reputation of Thomas Edison, the great inventor associated with electric lights, telephones and recording. The phonograph especially seems to be deconstructed in the lower part of the composition.
Gallery label, July 2011
Does this text contain inaccurate information or language that you feel we should improve or change? We would like to hear from you.
Catalogue entry
Jean Crotti 1878-1958
T02315 Portrait d'Edison (Portrait of Edison) 1920
Inscribed 'J. Crotti. | 1920' b.r.; the composition incorporates the words 'EDISON Inventeur', and 'L'AU DELA', and the letters and numbers '4PO', '3', 'YU' and 'F'
Gouache, watercolour and pencil on paper, 19 1/4 x 25 3/8 (48.9 x 64.5)
Purchased from the Brook Street Gallery (Grant-in-Aid) 1978
Prov:
Sale of works by Suzanne Duchamp and J. Crotti, Drouot, Paris, 18 February 1970, lot 57, repr.; bt. Brook Street Gallery, London; with B.H. Holland Gallery, Chicago; with Brook Street Gallery, London
Exh:
Retrospective Jean Crotti, Musée Galliera, Paris, December 1959-January 1960 (95); Art of the Dadaists, Helen Serger, La Boetie, Inc., New York, September-November 1977 (not in catalogue)
Repr:
Waldemar George, Jean Crotti
(Paris 1930), n.p.; Waldemar George, Jean Crotti et la Primauté du Spirituel
(Geneva 1959), repr. pl.26 and in colour on cover
A work of Crotti's Dada period, painted as a tribute to the famous American inventor Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931), whose more than one thousand patents included the incandescent electric lamp, the phonograph, the carbon telephone transmitter, and the motion-picture projector. The trumpet-like loudspeaker with the notes issuing from it is clearly an allusion to his phonograph. None of the other forms can be identified precisely, though the bow shape at the top left marked 'L'AU DELA' (The Beyond) appears to be some kind of aerial and the three pale arched forms grouped together in the centre may have been intended to suggest electric lamps.
The background has faded somewhat and was originally a stronger blue, as can be seen round the edges where it has been protected by the mount.
Published in:
Ronald Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, p.135, reproduced p.135
Explore
- abstraction(9,882)
-
- from recognisable sources(4,512)
-
- man-made(1,026)
- non-representational(6,712)
-
- irregular forms(2,013)
- electrical appliances(410)
-
- loudspeaker(6)
- named individuals(12,478)
- individuals: male(1,847)
- inscriptions(6,698)
-
- musical note(72)
- name(90)
- educational and scientific(1,422)
You might like
-
Francis Picabia Alarm Clock
1919 -
Wols (Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze) [title not known]
c.1944–5 -
Henri Laurens Seated Woman
c.1926–30 -
Thomas Tennant Baxter A Bather
1919 -
Albert Gleizes Painting
1921 -
Francis Picabia Conversation I
1922 -
Natalia Goncharova Rayonist Composition
c.1912–13 -
Albert Gleizes Portrait of Jacques Nayral
1911 -
Henri Laurens Bottle and Glass
1917 -
Francis Picabia The Fig-Leaf
1922 -
André Fougeron Homage to Franco!!!
1937 -
Wyndham Lewis Planners: Happy Day
1912–13 -
André Breton, Nusch Eluard, Valentine Hugo, Paul Eluard Exquisite Corpse
c.1930 -
Wols (Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze) [no title]
c.1937–50 -
Raoul Hausmann The Art Critic
1919–20