Ian Ehling
Head of Department
Lot 288
MAN RAY. 1890-1976. Revolving Doors, 1916-1917. Paris: Editions Surrealistes, 1926.
15 October 2021, 10:00 EDT
New YorkSold for US$42,812.50 inc. premium
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MAN RAY. 1890-1976.
Revolving Doors, 1916-1917. Paris: Editions Surrealistes, 1926.
Folio (562 x 380 mm). 10 pochoir plates, from collages created in 1916-1917. Publisher's cloth backed paper portfolio, with colophon printed inside rear board, original title label to upper cover.
Provenance: purchased from Ars Libri, Boston.
MAN RAY'S MOST IMPORTANT GRAPHIC WORK, number 98 of 105 copies, INSCRIBED by Man Ray in the year of publication, "A Pierre et Robbie / Mes amis / Man Ray / Oct 11, 1926." Created during the genesis of his 1916 painting "The Rope Dancer Accompanies Herself with Her Shadow," these ten abstractions were based on collages that arose from his experience of color, form and space. In his autobiography Self-Portrait, Ray himself describes: "I began by making sketches of various positions of the acrobatic forms, each on a different sheet of spectrum-colored paper, with the idea of suggesting movement not only in the drawing but by a transition from one color to another. I cut these out and arranged the forms into sequence before I began the final painting. After several changes in my composition I was less and less satisfied. It looked too decorative and might have served as a curtain for the theater. Then my eyes turned to the pieces of colored paper that had fallen to the floor. They made an abstract pattern that might have been the shadows of the dancer or an architectural subject, according to the trend of one's imagination if he were looking for a representative motive. I played with these, then saw the painting as it should be carried out. Scrapping the original forms of the dancer, I set to work on the canvas, laying in large areas of pure color in the form of the spaces that had been left outside the original drawings of the dancer. No attempt was made to establish a color harmony; it was red against blue, purple against yellow, green versus orange, with an effect of maximum contrast." When he first showed the collages at Galerie Daniel in 1919, they were hinged on a revolving stand, and accompanied by fanciful texts supplied by Ray. Remarkably, it was their publication here, colored in pochoir by the studio of Saudé, that brought the work its greatest attention. Anselmino 18. See Naumann, Conversion to Modernism: The Early Work of Man Ray, Chapter 7, "Painting in Two Dimensions, Part 2."
Folio (562 x 380 mm). 10 pochoir plates, from collages created in 1916-1917. Publisher's cloth backed paper portfolio, with colophon printed inside rear board, original title label to upper cover.
Provenance: purchased from Ars Libri, Boston.
MAN RAY'S MOST IMPORTANT GRAPHIC WORK, number 98 of 105 copies, INSCRIBED by Man Ray in the year of publication, "A Pierre et Robbie / Mes amis / Man Ray / Oct 11, 1926." Created during the genesis of his 1916 painting "The Rope Dancer Accompanies Herself with Her Shadow," these ten abstractions were based on collages that arose from his experience of color, form and space. In his autobiography Self-Portrait, Ray himself describes: "I began by making sketches of various positions of the acrobatic forms, each on a different sheet of spectrum-colored paper, with the idea of suggesting movement not only in the drawing but by a transition from one color to another. I cut these out and arranged the forms into sequence before I began the final painting. After several changes in my composition I was less and less satisfied. It looked too decorative and might have served as a curtain for the theater. Then my eyes turned to the pieces of colored paper that had fallen to the floor. They made an abstract pattern that might have been the shadows of the dancer or an architectural subject, according to the trend of one's imagination if he were looking for a representative motive. I played with these, then saw the painting as it should be carried out. Scrapping the original forms of the dancer, I set to work on the canvas, laying in large areas of pure color in the form of the spaces that had been left outside the original drawings of the dancer. No attempt was made to establish a color harmony; it was red against blue, purple against yellow, green versus orange, with an effect of maximum contrast." When he first showed the collages at Galerie Daniel in 1919, they were hinged on a revolving stand, and accompanied by fanciful texts supplied by Ray. Remarkably, it was their publication here, colored in pochoir by the studio of Saudé, that brought the work its greatest attention. Anselmino 18. See Naumann, Conversion to Modernism: The Early Work of Man Ray, Chapter 7, "Painting in Two Dimensions, Part 2."
