The First Round 1932

Pierre Dubreuil made this gelatin silver print, The First Round, by developing tones of grey into areas of dark and light, of shadow and relief. You get the sense that he carefully worked the print, coaxing out these shapes. I feel for this boxer. Dubreuil has captured a sensitivity in his face. Maybe he’s just been hit in the ring. You can see the texture of the gloves as they loom on either side of his face. And how they become a frame, cropping the face in a similar way to the way a painter might crop an artwork. He looks beat, for sure, but also sort of cute. It’s interesting to me that Dubreuil entitled this The First Round. It suggests the beginning of something, a feeling of anticipation. Boxing and painting both deal with risk, physically and mentally. Painters have always borrowed and stolen from one another. I wonder what the effect of photography was. It must have been huge.