Carlotta Corpron summary images at Hirshorn

The Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden pronounces “Carlotta Corpron: Light Is a Plastic Medium,” a survey of labor by the American summary photographer and educator whose investigations into the poetics of sunshine and type and progressive use of expertise supported the institution of images as superb artwork. Highlighting her biography and inventive achievements, the exhibition positions Corpron (1901-1988) within the vanguard by way of six our bodies of images made by the artist in Texas between the late Nineteen Thirties and the early Fifties. The exhibition showcases 48 latest presents by Herbert Lust to the Hirshhorn, in addition to extra loans from his assortment.

Organized by Hirshhorn Assistant Curator Betsy Johnson, “Carlotta Corpron: Light Is a Plastic Medium” can be on view from February 27, 2026, by way of January 31, 2027.

“Carlotta Corpron was a trailblazing American artist who has not yet received the recognition or scholarly inquiry she deserves,” Hirshhorn Director Melissa Chiu mentioned. “We are proud to introduce her work through Herbert Lust’s gift to the nation which expands significantly the Hirshhorn’s holdings of modern photography.”

Corpron spent most of her life faraway from the city facilities of the artwork world, transferring to Denton, TX, in 1935 to show artwork historical past and design at Texas State College for Women (as we speak Texas Women’s University). Nevertheless, she aligned herself with worldwide visionaries and influential photographers together with Alfred Stieglitz, László Moholy-Nagy, and György Kepes, who centered on elevating images as a superb artwork type.

In the United States, a brand new mode of artistic exploration for summary images flourished on the New Bauhaus in Chicago, based in 1937 underneath the course of Moholy-Nagy. The New Bauhaus curriculum underlined images’s relationship to gentle, influential rules that remained central all through Corpron’s observe, from her introduction to the medium in 1933 by way of 1955 when she stopped working within the darkroom for well being causes.

From her earliest work, Corpron was fascinated by how gentle adjustments notion of type and the way this perform may very well be conveyed by way of a digicam lens. Her inquiry into the impression of sunshine on type was central to her six our bodies of labor on view on the Hirshhorn: Nature Studies, Light Drawings, Light Patterns, Light Follows Form, Space Compositions, andFluid Light Designs.

“Carlotta Corpron: Light Is a Plastic Medium” traces the artist’s growth from photographing nature to gestural gentle drawings and formal research of sunshine and type, culminating in complicated expansions and distortions of house. Corpron’s earliest collection, the intermittent Nature Studies, established her model of foregrounding gentle as the first topic of her photographic work, starting with the results of sunshine modulated by way of Venetian blinds on floral preparations. Within her second collection, Light Drawings, Corpron experimented with the impression of digicam motion on shifting gentle, like a revolving carnival journey, to create gestural abstractions.

Working each at house and within the darkroom on campus, Corpron expanded upon these strategies, introducing on a regular basis objects similar to mirrored trays and paperweights to create new summary photos. In due course, Light Patterns and Light Follows Form charts examinations of modulated gentle, on paper and glass kinds, and throughout the floor of sculptural objects, respectively. These avenues of exploration led to her most complicated and experimental our bodies of labor made between 1940-1950, the peak of her productiveness.

Space Compositions captures the artist’s curiosity within the potential of sunshine, by way of reflection and refraction, to create house. Fluid Light Designs invitations viewers to shift their vantage factors from objects and deal with gentle itself.

“Joe Hirshhorn and I were neighbors and good friends for over 30 years. We shared many interests and especially a passion for the work of trailblazing artists,” mentioned Herbert Lust. “I am excited to join with the Hirshhorn in presenting this long overdue survey of Carlotta Corpron’s groundbreaking abstractions, created using the medium of light itself.”

About the Hirshhorn

The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is the nationwide museum of recent and modern artwork and a number one voice for Twenty first-century artwork and tradition. Part of the Smithsonian, the Hirshhorn is positioned prominently on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Its holdings embody one of the vital necessary collections of postwar American and European artwork on the planet.

The Hirshhorn presents numerous exhibitions and gives an array of public applications on the artwork of our time—free to all.

The Hirshhorn Museum is open Mondays midday–5:30 pm and Tuesdays–Sundays 10 am–5:30 pm (besides Dec. 25).

For extra info, go to www.hirshhorn.si.edu.