Untitled

Four doll arms emerge from a ravine of plastic flora, each manicured hand holding a bottle filled with amber liquid. A white label in the foreground reads “Dana TABU,” referring to the women’s fragrance created by the Spanish company House of Dana. After the company relocated to the United States in 1940, Yuichi “Eugene” Idaka and Ryuichi Sugasawara (who anglicized his name to Riley O’Suga) were commissioned to make this photograph, which they signed jointly as “Idak–O’Suga.” While teaching at the New Bauhaus in Chicago (later the Institute of Design), Idaka opened a commercial studio with O’Suga, where they created advertisements that reflected the school’s experimental approach to photography.