Description

A photograph of cut paper can tell a children’s fairy-tale or express trenchant political commentary. Nerlinger’s sketch for a never-produced, animated fairy-tale film uses a layered tissue paper technique that he devised for children’s book illustrations. Coppola’s three-dimensional paper construction sits atop a photograph of crowds lining the route to the wedding of Prince George, Duke of Kent, and Princess Marina of Greece. It was publicized as a fairy-tale romance to bolster public opinion of the monarchy and distract the populace from the grave economic situation during the Great Depression. The rationality and balance of Coppola’s geometric forms are belied by their material: they are cut from the daily stock listings in a London newspaper.