Man Ray Bücher

When American-born Surrealist Man Ray died in 1976, he left behind thousands of photo negatives, mostly portraits taken in his studio after his arrival in Paris in 1921. The Centre Georges Pompidou, which has owned them since the mid-1990s, has duly catalogued the collection of negatives and is now in a position to bring out what is an encyclopedic publication in the best sense of the term. It attests both to Man Ray s ability as a portrait photographer and to the quality of his archive as a monument to cultural history. The catalog features 500 portraits, each of which is explained in a short commentary. Since Man Ray's clientele was made up of members of Dadaist and Surrealist circles, of artists and painters, of writers and US emigrants of the Lost Generation, of aristocrats, and paragons of the worlds of fashion and theater, the book is at the same time a marvelous Who's Who and an indispensable reference work for a broad range of different historians and scholars of the 20th century.

"Dada is artistic free-thinking." — Breton. Man Ray (1890–1976), an American photographer, painter, designer, sculptor, and filmmaker, arrived in Paris in 1921, where he was inspired by the irrationality of Dada and the surreal vision of Surrealism. He created striking images that transform our perceptions of reality. This large-format volume features a rich selection of his works from the 1920s and 30s, reproduced on coated stock to preserve their dramatic impact. Ray's innovative techniques included over and underexposure, shooting through fabrics, superimposing images, and focusing on minute details. He welcomed the artificiality and strangeness that resulted from breaking conventional presentation modes. The photographs are organized into five categories: general subjects (still lifes, landscapes, etc.), female figures (mainly nudes), women's faces (including Gertrude Stein), celebrity portraits (Ray, Dalí, Picasso, and others), and rayographs, which are "cameraless" compositions. The edition also includes texts by Eluard, Breton, and Tzara in French with English translations, along with an introduction by Ray. Today, Ray's photographs command high prices, making this affordable Dover edition an invaluable resource for photographers, artists, and students to explore these iconic masterpieces that challenge conventional aesthetics.