Lot 4416: Stepán, Bohumil: "Cabinet Portrait" album of photocollages

"Cabinet Portrait" album. 1970. 77 photo collage carte-de visite and cabinet size albumen and gelatin silver prints. Inserted in photo album boards bound in leather art nouveau album (rubbed, some traces of use) with brass ornament on front cover and gilt-edged boards.
A rare and curious object, this "family album" contains 77 cartes-de-visite and cabinet photo collages inspired by Dada and Surrealism.. Bohumil Stepán created several albums containing "family members" from old carte-de-visite photos which he humorously reconstructed. Stepán's work has been exhibited in Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, Munich, Vienna, Zurich, Stockholm and Florence and he published several books as well. In the 1970s he won several prizes in Canada, Italy and the Czech Republic. Stepán's text for one of the collages in the album offered here reads: "Schwägerin Amalie konnte nicht heiraten, weil sie einen kantigen Kopf hatte. Mit einer Tischdecke sah sie jedoch ganz manierlich aus. Ein junger Mann erschoß sich sogar wegen ihr (als sie die Tischdecke abnahm)" (Sister-in-law Amalie could not marry because she had a square head. However, she looked quite fine with a table cloth. A young man even shot himself because of her [when she took the table cloth off]). - Most photo collages in very good condition. - With: 4 additional humorous cabinet card portrait collages by Bohumil Stepán. - In very good condition.
Lit.: Bohumil Stepáns Familienalbum Collagen. Munich 1971, ill. unpaginated.