The Enigma of Isidore Ducasse

Details

MAN RAY
The Enigma of Isidore Ducasse
Gelatin silver print. 1920/1975. Authentication by Beth Gates Warren in pencil on the verso.
23 1/8 x 18½in. (58.7 x 47cm.)

Provenance

Juliet Man Ray's Estate, The Man Ray Trust and The Family of Juliet Man Ray, Sotheby's, London, 22-23 March 1995, lot 232.

Literature

See: La Révolution Surréaliste, no. 1, October, 1924; Penrose, Man Ray, p. 89, no. 45; Schwarz, Man Ray: Il rigore dell'imaginazione, p. 152, no. 283.

Lot Essay

Man Ray draws his inspiration for the creation of this object from Chants de Maldoror, an 1868-69 text by Comte de Lautréamont (Isidore Ducasse). His object, a sewing machine wrapped and tied is a direct result of the reading of this passage, 'lovely as the fortuitous encounter on a dissection table of a sewing machine and an umbrella.' Ducasse's writing was later embraced by André Breton as a classic Surrealist text.

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