MAN RAY (1890-1976)

Details
MAN RAY (1890-1976)

Sans Titre

Rayograph. 1922. Signed and dated in pencil on the recto; signed and inscribed Je certifie que ce Rayograph est original, fait sans negatif (vers 1923)[sic] de la serie reproduite dans les Feuilles Libres, Mai-Juin 1925, Man Ray, 29-5-1968 in ink on the verso. 9 3/8 x 7 1/8in. Framed.
Provenance
This rayograph originally came from the collection of Arturo Schwarz.
Literature
Dada Photomontagen, Dada Photographie und Photocollage, Kestner-Gesellschaft, Hannover, 1979, p. 238, fig. 172.; 60 Anni De Liberta, Milano: Galleria Schwarz, 1971, n.p.; see Perpetual Motif, p. 180, fig. 146 for a variant dated 1923; and Das Fotogramm, p. 48 for additional information on the publication Les Feuilles Libres. Les Feuilles Libres first published a rayograph by Man Ray in the April/May 1922 issue No. 26.
Exhibited
Man Ray, Galleria Milano, Milan, 1966;

Metamorphos des Dinges or La metamorphose de l'objet, #221, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam, 1971-72;

Malerei und Photographie im Dialog, von 1840 bis heute, #402, Ausstellung im Rahmen der Junifestwochen, Kunsthaus, Zurich, 1977;

Dada Photomontagen, Dada Photographie und Photocollage, #172, Kestner-Gesellschaft, Hannover, 1979;

Man Ray, Carte Varie e Variabili, #114, Padoglione d'Arte Contemporaney, Milan, 1983-84;

Perpetual Motif: The Art of Man Ray, National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 1988

Lot Essay

Man Ray's acknowledgement of the revolutionary implications of The Machine Age, in which his work adhered to the 2-dimensionality of the picture plane through spatial compression and flattening of 3-D forms, was prefigured as early as 1915 in Dance, an oil painting on canvas. The theme of man as machine, a subject explored by Duchamp and Picabia, appeared in Man Ray's photographic ouevre as early as 1922 in his manikin rayographs.