Lisbon, Portugal

Photograph

DePaul Art Museum

Name/Title

Lisbon, Portugal

Entry/Object ID

2016.06

Description

Black & white overhead shot of pedestrians walking down cobblestone sidewalk with dark shadows

Context

As a street photographer, Castello-Lopes worked with a small hand-held camera to capture dramatic moments pulled from the flow of public life on the streets of Portuguese and French cities. Castello-Lopes’s work exhibits the hallmarks of Cartier-Bresson’s philosophy of the “decisive moment”: an image made on the fly that contains the perfect confluence of content and composition. Castello-Lopes was also active in the Lisbon jazz scene and as a cinematographer. His lyrical photographs of city life demonstrate the influence of musical improvisation and cinematic use of natural light. This street scene, with its dramatic bird’s eye view and geometric composition, bears the influence of the inter-war avant-garde, specifically the graphic sensibility of the Bauhaus and structural visual strategies of the Russian Constructivists. Like the photographers Umbo, Aleksander Rodchenko, and László Moholy-Nagy, Castello-Lopes used a dynamic visual language to make commonplace subject appear somewhat strange and unfamiliar.

Acquisition

Accession

2016.03-06

Source or Donor

Jennifer Goldman, Isaac Goldman

Acquisition Method

Gift

Credit Line

Collection of DePaul Art Museum, Gift of Jennifer and Isaac Goldman

Made/Created

Artist

Castello-Lopes, Gérard

Date made

1956

Ethnography

Notes

French Porteguese Portugal

Inscription/Signature/Marks

Location

verso

Transcription

[signature]

Notes

Inscription Type: graphite

Location

verso

Notes

Inscription Type: photographers stamp

Lexicon

Nomenclature 4.0

Nomenclature Secondary Object Term

Print, Photographic

Nomenclature Primary Object Term

Photograph

Nomenclature Sub-Class

Graphic Documents

Nomenclature Class

Documentary Objects

Nomenclature Category

Category 08: Communication Objects

Getty AAT

Concept

geometric patterns, patterns (design elements), design elements (attributes)

Hierarchy Name

Design Elements (hierarchy name)

Facet

Physical Attributes Facet

LOC Thesaurus for Graphic Materials

City views

Dimensions

Dimension Description

overall

Width

8 in

Length

15-1/2 in

Exhibition

Life Cycles