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Lot Essay
'From this simple process he has proceeded to create landscapes foreign to our planet...…[and] here the miracle lets itself be captured without resistance, and something else besides leaves its anguishing mark on the revelatory paper.' -- Robert Desnos, Le journal, 1923
Man Ray returned to drawing in the 1930s and his photographic output was largely concerned with lucrative magazine work, portraiture and the exploration of his newly discovered use of the Sabattier effect (solarisation). During this time, Man Ray is known to have made at least twenty Rayographs, in addition to the ten he created in 1931 for his Electricité portfolio, a commissioned project for the Paris electric company CPDE. In the same or possibly the previous year, Man Ray -- who at this time was in a relationship with the photographer and model Lee Miller -- created this celestial Rayograph in which scattered bean-shaped objects are contained in a circle of light and shadow from which beams of light emanate. Man Ray was at times capable of making his Rayographs quickly and spontaneously, dropping pins and buttons at random on some and unravelling filmstrips on others. Here he used this approach not only to invent an imaginative landscape that defies direct interpretation but also to evoke sound and motion.
A related Rayograph from 1930/31 in the J. Paul Getty Museum's collection was made at the same time as this work.1 Described as 'a constellation of sequins scattered across a circle of light'2, the variant image reveals a similar compositional approach.
This work will be included in the forthcoming Catalogue Raisonné of the Rayographs being prepared by Steven Manford.
1 Steven Manford comments, 'Though both this and the Getty-Crane variant were made on the same date, they are dated in the hand of the artist 1931 and 1930 respectively. This is not an uncommon occurrence as Man Ray frequently could not recall the precise date on which he made a Rayograph and often signed a Rayograph only years later when it left his studio.'
2 K. Ware, In Focus: Man Ray, Los Angeles, 1998, p.54, pl.24.
Man Ray returned to drawing in the 1930s and his photographic output was largely concerned with lucrative magazine work, portraiture and the exploration of his newly discovered use of the Sabattier effect (solarisation). During this time, Man Ray is known to have made at least twenty Rayographs, in addition to the ten he created in 1931 for his Electricité portfolio, a commissioned project for the Paris electric company CPDE. In the same or possibly the previous year, Man Ray -- who at this time was in a relationship with the photographer and model Lee Miller -- created this celestial Rayograph in which scattered bean-shaped objects are contained in a circle of light and shadow from which beams of light emanate. Man Ray was at times capable of making his Rayographs quickly and spontaneously, dropping pins and buttons at random on some and unravelling filmstrips on others. Here he used this approach not only to invent an imaginative landscape that defies direct interpretation but also to evoke sound and motion.
A related Rayograph from 1930/31 in the J. Paul Getty Museum's collection was made at the same time as this work.
This work will be included in the forthcoming Catalogue Raisonné of the Rayographs being prepared by Steven Manford.