Der Rasende Reporter (The Racing Reporter) (Egon Erwin Kisch)

1926

Otto Umbehr

Artist, German, 1902 - 1980

A humanoid form is made of a human head and mechanical parts for the body in this vertical, black and white photomontage. The face appears to be pale skinned with dark hair, and he smokes a cigarette. A camera overlaps one eye, and two gramophone horns extend from the man’s head. A wristwatch reading 10:10 encircles the neck like a choker. The torso is made of a typewriter over a printing press. A biplane extends from the person’s groin to nearly reach the right edge of the composition. The arms are made of up tubes or pipes. One hand is human and the fingers rest on the typewriter. The other hand ends with a fountain pen tip. The humanoid strides across a mountain range toward a city, as cannons and soldiers fire from below. The scale shifts dramatically from the soldiers, who are indistinct and blurry but close to us, to the orderly city blocks in the distance to the right. The artist wrote on the photograph in black ink: “Jarmilence k vánocum 1926” to the left of the figure and “Egon Erwin Kisch” to the right. The photographic negative was inscribed so white letters in the bottom left corner read “Umbher 26.”
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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    gelatin silver print of photomontage

  • Credit Line

    Patrons' Permanent Fund

  • Dimensions

    Overall: 28.6 x 20.5 cm (11 1/4 x 8 1/16 in.)
    framed: 58.7 x 48.9 x 2.9 cm (23 1/8 x 19 1/4 x 1 1/8 in.)

  • Accession

    2006.61.1


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Suzanne Pastor, Prague, c. 1990; (Galerie Priska Pasquer, Cologne, Germany, c. 2004); NGA purchase, 2006.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

2007

  • Foto: Modernity in Central Europe, 1918-1945, National Gallery of Art, Washington; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee; Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, 2007 - 2008, no. 83.

Inscriptions

Center left in black ink: Jarmilence k vánocum / 1926; center right: Egon Erwin Kisch; inscribed in negative lower leftL Umbehr 26.; on verso, by later hand, lower right in black ink: Der Rasende Reporter / Photokomposition / copyright by / Otto Umbehr

Wikidata ID

Q64158575


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