Pierre Dubreuil 1872-1944

oil print, the photographer's monogram on the image, mounted to heavy textured paper, titled by the photographer in pencil on the mount, annotated 'No. 4--Propriete de G. Gheude -- President A.B.P.C' in an unidentified hand in ink on the reverse, a letterpress address label titled and inscribed with the photographer's '28 rue de Locht, Bruxelles, Belgique' address by him in ink on the reverse, an additional mount affixed to the first with numerous Camera Club exhibition labels, matted, framed, 1928 

The Collection of Tom Jacobson, San Diego, California

Christie's New York, 29 April 1999, Sale 9150, Lot 197

Camera Club of New York; Los Angeles Camera Club; Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences; Cleveland Photographic Society; Reading, Pennsylvania, Camera Club; Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Camera Club; Milwaukee Art Institute; the Boston Y.M.C.U. Camera Club; and numerous other Camera Club venues, 1929-30

Torino, Italy, Terzo 'Salon" Italiano d'Arte Fotografica Internazionale,1930-31

London, Royal Photographic Society, Pierre Dubreuil Retrospective, 1935

Paris, Musee d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Pierre Dubreuil, Photographs 1896 - 1935, 1987

San Diego, The Museum of Photographic Arts, Pierre Dubreuil Rediscovered,1988; and thereafter to Alliance Française, New York, 1989; and The Detroit Institute of Arts, 1990

 

Tom Jacobson, Pierre Dubreuil, Photographs 1896 – 1935 (San Diego, 1987, in conjunction with the exhibition at the Musée d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou), p. 29, fig. 19 (this print)

Another print of this image:

Annely Juda Fine Art, André Kertész and Avant Garde Photography of the Twenties and Thirties (London, 1999), pl. 13

It is believed that there are only four prints of this image, including prints in the collection of The Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago, and another institution.  

Like Dubreuil’s Eléphantaisie (Lot 21), The Woman Driver was taken using the Dallmeyer Bergheim lens, the first soft-focus lens available.  Used in conjunction with orthochromatic plates, the lens could deliver an image with very dramatic tonality, such as the one offered here.  The model for this photograph was Dubreuil’s wife, Josephine Vanassche.