Object Record
Images
Metadata
Artist |
Mochi, Ugo |
Title |
Silhouette of Virginia Hamill Johnson |
Date |
1939 |
Medium |
cut paper adhered to illustration board |
Culture |
American (born Italy) |
Object ID |
1981.12.1 |
Collection |
Modern Art (1900-1970) |
Object Name |
Picture, Cut-paper |
Credit line |
Gift of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, from the Estate of Virginia Johnson |
Didactic Information |
An Italian artist who was considered a master of the art of silhouette, Ugo Mochi was known by some to be a "poet of shadows." Mochi used a tool similar to a lithographer's knife that he fashioned himself. Although Mochi created sculptural outlines of people and interiors, he was best known for his outlines of animals. Born into an aristocratic family, Mochi attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence at age ten and later received a scholarship to attend the Art Academy in Berlin, where he worked with the noted German sculptor August Gaul, known for his animal figures. Mochi created his silhouettes by drawing a basic composition on tissue paper which he laid on black paper and then cut through to expose the basic outlines of his images and backed on white paper to reveal the sharp contrast of light and dark. He often called his work the "art of outline" or "graphic sculptures" rather than silhouettes. Carrying a large role of black paper, Mochi's immigrated to the United States in 1928 and began a lucrative career creating silhouettes for magazines such as Women's Home Companion, Collier's, and American. This silhouette was created in 1939 of Virginia Hamill Johnson, an important patron of the Tucson Museum of Art. Johnson was the Interior Decoration Editor for Women's Home Companion in New York. |