No. 20: Perspective

Grete Stern was commissioned to create the Dreams photomontages as photographic illustrations for a weekly column, “Psychoanalysis Will Help You,” in Idilio (Idyll), a pioneering Argentinian women’s magazine. Its readers submitted written descriptions of their dreams which were analyzed by two male intellectuals and illustrated by Stern. While incorporating some suggestions from two men, Stern often subverted their interpretations, substituting her own proto-feminist reactions to the dream narratives.

A vertically oriented black-and-white photomontage is dominated by two exceptionally tall ladders leaning together to form a sharp peak. Against a swath of hazy, clouded sky, a woman in a patterned swimsuit crawls across the summit toward our left. Below, a rutted dirt path recedes between the ladder bases toward a flat horizon. The steep diagonal rails slash through the composition, framing the desolate landscape and creating a dramatic sense of scale.

No. 20: Perspective

1949, printed probably 1970s

Grete Stern

(German, 1904–1999)

Argentina

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