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‘JAKOB TUGGENER: BALL NIGHTS’ OPENS AT LAURENCE MILLER GALLERY

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NEW YORK CITY — Laurence Miller Gallery presents “Jakob Tuggener: Ball Nights 1934–1962,” on view through May 5. Widely known in Europe for his groundbreaking sequential book maquettes, this will be Tuggener’s first solo show in the United States.

The exhibition will feature 40 prints from his society ball series, which take the viewer on a lyrical journey through the night, from the arrival of guests to exhausted partygoers well after midnight. A small selection of images from other projects, and two silent films made by Tuggener, will also be presented.

Tuggener (1904–1988) was born in Zurich, Switzerland, and began taking photographs in 1926. In 1934 he began a 30-year project of photographing society and opera balls in Zurich, St Moritz and Vienna. Unlike other photographers who recorded the balls in a journalistic manner, Tuggener took very personal photographs that reflected his adoration of the elegant women and fascination for nocturnal society life. He wrote: “…it was a fairy tale of feminine beauty and flowing silky radiance…”

Drawn from unfinished maquettes and other prints intended for exhibition within the Jakob Tuggener Foundation, the show highlights will include “Blonde Frau, Grand Hotel Dolder, Zurich, 1948,” in which a young woman receives her fur at the end of night; “Suvretta House, New Year’s Eve, St Moritz, 1946,” a shimmering still life of empty champagne bottles, broken glasses and confetti; and the humorous “My supper, Palace Hotel, St Moritz, New Year’s Eve, 1943/1944,” in which nearly the entire picture is filled with a silver tray holding a solitary pickle.

The gallery is at 20 West 57th Street. For information, www.laurencemillergallery.com or 212-397-3930.