Man Ray - Trees + Flowers - Insects Animals - 2009

Locked in enormous bank vaults and largely removed from public scrutiny for more than a decade, the little known collection of the Man Ray Trust comprises more than 4,000 works by Man Ray. The 320 photographs and drawings selected for this publication are among the rarest of Man Ray’s works, and will be a revelation to even his most devoted admirers.

At the core of Man Ray: Trees + Flowers – Insects Animals is a series of landscape photographs made by Man Ray from the 1920s through the 1950s, many of which bear the distinct influence of Eugène Atget. With subjects including castles and ruined buildings, street scenes, and the objects from which he drew inspiration for other artworks, the photographs and drawings in this book represent an intermediary step in Man Ray’s creative process.

The title of the series, Trees + Flowers – Insects Animals, was discovered by the editor scrawled across the backside of a photograph, and provides a key to this most unusual collection. These photographs function as a subject index to the themes and motifs that Man Ray employed in his better known works. They are, on the one hand, a record of his travels and observations in Europe and the United States. On the other hand, they are the relic of a moment preserved by Man Ray for later use and interpretation.