Man Ray, Photographs 1920-1934

Man Ray (d. i. Emmanuel Rudnitzky oder Radnitzky). Photographs 1920-1934. (Avec un Portrait par Picasso – Textes de André Breton, Paul Eluard, Rrose Sélavy, Tristan Tzara – Préface by Man Ray). Hartford Connecticut, James Thrall Soby (1934). 4°. [7] Bl. (Text) u. 103 Heliogravuren nach Photographien, davon 19 „Rayographien“ von M. Ray. Farbig illustr. OKart. mit Kunstoff-Spiral-Bindung.

Auer 210. Bouqueret, Paris 148 ff. Roth, The Book of 101 Books 80 f (″deuxième édition“). – Sehr seltene erste Ausgabe; first issue, first printing (″copies with the original title page are exceedingly rare“ (D. Levy Srauss in Roth). – Texte in Englisch, Französisch und Deutsch. – „[T]his was Man Ray’s first monograph, and his friends pulled out all the stops to herald it … attempted to generate demand where none existed by suggesting the edition had sold out. After replacing the title pages of these copies with one stating second edition, he returned them for sale. … It begins with a portrait drawing of Man Ray by Pablo Picasso and consists of 104 photographs divided into five sections. … Man Ray made several different studies for the cover; until finally settling on this image of his own bust looking down on a blue-eyed blonde contemplating a plaster hand cradling, a fragile lithtbulb that mirrors a catching toy (a ball an a peg)“ (D. Levy Srauss in Roth). – “Man Ray’s work introduced a particular note [to Surrealism], since he used photography and recognized early on that this medium could reproduce the effects of object-based art in two-dimensional form. Photography was in a position to preserve the ordinary and to unleash surreal effects” (P. Stepan, Icons of Photography 26). – Provinienz/Provenance: Collection of Rosa and Aaron Esman, New York. – Außergewöhnlich gut erhaltenes und sauberes Exemplar. – Fine, well preserved copy.