
Collection Online as of February 7, 2023
(French, 1906–1974)
Photomechanical reproduction, collage
Image: 13.1 x 10 cm (5 3/16 x 3 15/16 in.)
John L. Severance Fund 2007.54
© 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
not on view
A full-scale replica of the temple of Angkor Wat at the 1931 International Colonial Exposition of Paris sparked popular interest in architecture in Cambodia, which was then a French protectorate. Hugnet transformed a gallery announcement for a 1926 exhibition of drawings of Cambodian ruins into a satirical portrait by merely gluing four tiny bits of printed paper onto the image of the temple. The Surrealists staged two public protests against the Colonial Exposition; Hugnet’s collage may have been a more intimate form of commentary.