Untitled (Still Life with Coffee)

Date

ca. 1951

Creator

This carbro print mock-up exemplifies the design and photography of Muray's later career, apparently conceived and created by his studio in New York City. It was not intended as a creative photograph, but rather as a magazine advertisement designed to attract the eye and convey an immediate message. The artist set up the composition with opposing diagonals: while the walls of the fictive room and its perspectival window frame draw the eye to the right, a checkered tablecloth in red and white point to the left and the distant landscape. The effect is an awareness of complex depth, but a focus of attention on the center of the image, where a stream of coffee pours into a cup. Close inspection reveals that the patterned tablecloth is not woven or printed[,] but made up of ribbon stretched in a grid over a white cloth, typical of Muray's practice of creating props in the studio from art materials. from Acton, A History of Photography at the University of Notre Dame: Twentieth Century (Notre Dame, 2019)