A,B,C,D, E

Craig Zammiello

Titles A, B, C, D, E is a series based on the original Thompson submachine gun model of 1921.

 I’ve always been attracted to the industrial photography of the 1920 – 30’s as one might see in technical manuals of machinery, etc. I approached photographing this weapon with that style in mind. The Thompson submachine gun of 1921, the preferred weapon of the 1930 bank robbers and other gangsters, has a very iconic profile – most people know a Tommy Gun just by looking at it. So, I also wanted to take it out of context, editing the views so identification might take a bit of time and the individual images would stand alone as testaments to basic machinery form.

It’s pretty well accepted by authorities on the weapon that it was really the last killing machine that also incorporated design style into its fabrication.   The 1921 Thompson is a grand example of Art Deco – from the cooling fins on the barrel to the formed handgrips. In later designed weapons meant for killing human beings, form started to truly follow function. In fact, at the beginning of WWII the United States, being without a submachine gun for its army and navy, was forced to purchase thousands of 1921 and updated 1928 Thompson guns at ridiculous prices at the time – and the weapons themselves proved to be so out of date and heavy (they were designed for the trench warfare of WWI but that war ended before they went into production) – that by the end of WWII, it had been redesigned 3 more times to streamline and bring down the cost of production. Gone were all the Deco characteristics of the early gangster gun.  

Craig Zammiello, New York, 2022

Craig Zammiello (b. 1955, USA) is an artist and Master Printer with over 40 years of experience in all areas of printmaking. He is the author of a studio manual on photogravure and Conversations from the Print Studio, published by Yale University Press. He worked for 25 years at Universal Limited Art Editions, where he collaborated with numerous artists, notably Jasper Johns, Elizabeth Murray, James Rosenquist, Kiki Smith, and Robert Rauschenberg. He is Master Printer at Two Palms Press, working with Mel Bochner, Ellen Gallagher, Chris Offili, Elizabeth Peyton, and Dana Schutz. Zammiello has exhibited his work in the United States and abroad. His prints can be found in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts collections in Antwerp, Belgium, Yale University Art Gallery, and the Hoesch Museum in Duren, Germany. Zammiello received an MFA from The State University of New York, Stony Brook, in 1995. He is currently Adjunct Faculty at the School of the Arts at Columbia University. In addition, Zammiello has taught workshops and classes at New York University, Yale University, The Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, and the Flemish Center for the Graphic Arts in Belgium. zammiello.com/