The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 13, 2025

The Film

1930

Herman Bekman

(German, b. 1906)
Netherlands or Germany, 20th century
gelatin silver print
Image: 29.8 x 23.9 cm (11 3/4 x 9 7/16 in.)
John L. Severance Fund 2007.29
Location: Not on view

Description

Bekman was a professional photographer who shot everything from advertising images, nature scenes, and portraits to fine art images. Here he transforms one of the mundane tools of his trade—the metal reel and celluloid guide strip from a developing tank for 35 mm roll film—into a dramatic abstraction. References to the nature or practice of photography are a common motif in work of this era.
  • September 15, 2001
    (Kunsthaus Lempertz, Cologne, Sep. 15, 2001, no. 35)
    2007
    David Raymond [b.1979], New York, NY
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E. Hinson, Ian Walker, and Lisa Kurzner. Forbidden Games: Surrealist and Modernist Photography : the David Raymond Collection in the Cleveland Museum of Art. 2014. cat. no. 93, p. 140.
  • Forbidden Games: Surrealist and Modernist Photography. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 19, 2014-January 11, 2015).
  • {{cite web|title=The Film|url=false|author=Herman Bekman|year=1930|access-date=13 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2007.29