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DWINELL GRANT "Contrathemis", Frame 2409.
Colored pencils on semitransparent wove paper, 1941. 215x280 mm; 8 1/2x11 inches. Initialed, dated and inscribed "2409" in pencil, lower left recto and signed, titled and dated in pencil, verso.
Provenance: Private collection, New Jersey.
Grant's (1912-1991) experimental silent film Contrathemis was created with stop-motion animation from more than 4,000 original drawings, like the present work. The drawings were individually photographed and put in order by the artist and synchronized to lighting effects created by colorized car headlights. Grant's use of the film medium allowed him to explore the potential of shapes and color put into motion. Contrathemis, supported by Hilla Rebay (1890-1967) and the Guggenheim Foundation, was the most notable, ground-breaking project of Grant's, of the several important avant-garde films he made between 1938 and 1941. The Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., holds the drawing "Contrathemis", Frame 2401 which was used close in sequence to the present work.
