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Dimensions: 15 1/2 by 11 1/2 in. (39.3 by 29.2 cm.)
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Provenance: The photographer to a family member
Jedermann Collection
Acquired by the present collection from the above, 1994
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Exhibited: New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Diogenes with a Camera II, 25 November 1952 - 8 March 1953
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Literature: Ronny Van de Velde, Man Ray 1890-1976 (Ghent, 1994, in conjunction with the exhibition at Galerie Ronny Van de Velde, Amsterdam), p. 241
Marina Vanci-Perahim, ed., Great Modern Masters: Man Ray, (New York, 1998), p. 7
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Notes: This large Rayograph is one of three unique works created by Man Ray during a single darkroom session. Each of the three measures roughly 12 by 16 inches, and uses as its source subject matter a mesh screen, wood shavings, and a rope or string. Using these basic, and somewhat abstracted, objects, Man Ray here employs his distinct photogram process to create whimsical drawings on photographic paper. His Rayographs of the 1920s were, in fact, as he himself noted, the only drawings he made during that decade.
In the Rayograph offered here, dated 1926, Man Ray places a vertical length of folded mesh screen at the center, and the shavings explode into full bloom out of the top of the mesh funnel. A zig-zag wire cups the wild swirl of shavings. Adding to the picture's dynamism, Man Ray completes the composition using rope or string to create playful, looping swirls. The two variant Rayographs utilizing these same objects are in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (for a reproduction of one, cf. Getty, In Focus: Man Ray, pl. 19). These Getty Rayographs are both dated 1924, suggesting that the three photograms were all created in either 1924 or 1926. These Getty variants came originally from the collection of Arnold Crane, who acquired them directly from Man Ray.
The Rayograph offered here was among seven Rayographs included in the exhibition Diogenes with a Camera II, curated by Edward Steichen and held at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, from November 1952 to March 1953. (In Man Ray's 1952 correspondence with his family, the photographer comments on a recent visit with Steichen in Paris.) An installation view of the exhibition shows the seven Rayographs hung together, accompanied by the text of Man Ray's 1950 essay, "Photographic Reflections." In this installation view, the orientation of the Rayograph offered here is inverted. This alternate presentation of the Rayograph may indicate that Steichen preferred the inverted orientation, and as was his wont, hung it according to his own personal preference; or it may indicate that the work, at that time, had not been annotated with directional arrows by Man Ray, or had not been signed and dated in the lower right corner, recto, as it is at present. This would not have been unusual, for Man Ray frequently signed and dated his Rayographs as they were gifted or sold, years after their making. A signing and dating of the photogram by Man Ray at a later time would also explain the discrepancy between the date of the present Rayograph and the two related photograms in the Getty Museum, suggesting that the present Rayograph may in fact date to 1924.
Sotheby's thanks Man Ray Rayograph scholar Steven Manford for the research and insights presented here.
