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Lot Essay
Inspired by his close friend Marcel Duchamp - who created his first readymade in 1912 with Bicycle Wheel - Man Ray executed Enigma I in 1920. Duchamp was prominent in altering the perceptions long built up by Western art at the turn of the century. With the aid of Duchamp and his fellow Dada contemporaries, Man Ray, primarily a painter, sought a new means of expression far reaching in implications, that significantly inspired his later foray into Rayography.
Affected by the French writer Lautréamont and the mythical verse, "Lovely as the fortuitous encounter on a dissecting table of a sewing machine and an umbrella", Man Ray chose in 1920 to wrap a sewing machine in a blanket and tie it with rope, creating a seminal work in the history of early Surrealism. Enigma I appeared on the first page of the first issue of La Révolution Surréaliste, a signal call to a new form of expression, one without limitations.
In the years to follow, fueled by the writtings of Sartre, Rimbaud and Freud, no greater an influence on Man Ray was the Marquis de Sade. The Marquis' call for uninhibited sexuality and absolute liberty found free reign in Man Ray's 1935 Enigma II. Further realization of this theme came in 1936 with the sculpture Venus Restored.
Affected by the French writer Lautréamont and the mythical verse, "Lovely as the fortuitous encounter on a dissecting table of a sewing machine and an umbrella", Man Ray chose in 1920 to wrap a sewing machine in a blanket and tie it with rope, creating a seminal work in the history of early Surrealism. Enigma I appeared on the first page of the first issue of La Révolution Surréaliste, a signal call to a new form of expression, one without limitations.
In the years to follow, fueled by the writtings of Sartre, Rimbaud and Freud, no greater an influence on Man Ray was the Marquis de Sade. The Marquis' call for uninhibited sexuality and absolute liberty found free reign in Man Ray's 1935 Enigma II. Further realization of this theme came in 1936 with the sculpture Venus Restored.