Man Ray (1890–1976) - Retour à la raison, 1923

Rare and magnificent photolithograph by the renowned photographer Man Ray titled 'Retour à la raison,' created in 1923.
Unique copy of one of the most famous photographs in the world, in a limited edition.
unnumbered.
out of print
Art print quality

Description :
Photolithograph on thick paper with press agency/newspaper stamp (Photo credits: Man Ray Trust, Paris)
Description on the back side available in multiple languages: English, Spanish, Chinese, French, German.
Author(s): Man Ray
Publisher: Taschen GmbH
Signature: Publishing house certificate and photo credits on the back.
Publication: 2001
Condition: Excellent (never been framed), see photos.
Tiny traces of time on the extreme edge, slightly pressed against the upper corner. Invisible detail to the framing.
Dimensions: 36.5 cm x 28.5 cm
Shipping: Professional, careful and secure packaging with tracking number and insurance via UPS or Colissimo.
Worldwide shipping.

About the artist :

Man Ray, born in Philadelphia on August 27, 1790 under the name Emmanuel Radnistky or Rudzitsky, was an American painter, photographer, and filmmaker. A promoter of Dadaism and Surrealism, he settled in France in 1921. Naturalized French, he died in Paris on November 18, 1976.

Birth, childhood and education

Emmanuel, known as Manny and later Man, better known as Man Ray, was the eldest of three children. He had two younger sisters, Dorothy and Essie. Their parents, Max and Minnie, were of Russian descent and Jewish. Max was a tailor, while Minnie was a seamstress. Man and his sisters grew up in Brooklyn, New York. Man's father needed help in his tailoring shop, and the three children were asked to work there. This had a lasting impact on Man Ray's work: several of his works contain references to couture and clothing. Facing anti-Semitism, Manny's family decided to change their surname: from Radnisky, they became Ray, and the young Manny was called Man Ray from then on. Interested in art from an early age, Man saw painting and photography as tools of expression that allowed the artist to communicate with his audience. Man was educated at the Ferrer Center in Manhattan, an establishment with very liberal methods, which encouraged the development of the young boy's artistic creativity.

Career as a painter and photographer in New York and then in France

Man Ray began his career in New York as a painter and illustrator, as well as a photographer. He frequented, for example, the 291 gallery of Alfred Stieglitz, the famous American photographer and gallery owner. In 1915, he exhibited his paintings and drawings in Grantwood, New Jersey. He then abandoned conventional painting to become involved in the Dada movement. He became editor of two Dadaist magazines in the United States, The Ridgefield Gazook and TNT. In 1920, he began his collaboration with Marcel Duchamp, which led to the publication of a magazine called New York Dada.
In 1921, Man Ray left New York and moved to Paris. There, he met Kiki de Montparnasse, a singer and model, who became his muse and with whom he fell madly in love. In Paris, he took numerous photographs for fashion magazines, such as Vogue and Vanity Fair. In Paris, he also explored the photogram technique, a technique that allows one to take a photographic image of an object without using a camera, by placing the elements one wishes to immortalize on a photosensitive film: this earned him the recognition and admiration of Dadaist and Surrealist artists such as Tristan Tzara, Salvador Dali, and Jean Cocteau. In 1925, Man Ray participated in the first Surrealist exhibition at the Galerie Pierre alongside Joan Miro, Pablo Picasso, and Max Ernst.


Man Ray specialized in photographic portraiture and directed avant-garde short films such as The Return to Reason (1923), The Starfish (1928), and The Mysteries of the Castle of Dé (1929). During World War II, concerned about anti-Jewish measures taken in Germany and then in France, Man Ray had to leave Paris and take refuge in the United States: anti-Semitic persecution would have threatened his safety. He lived in Los Angeles between 1940 and 1951, and he returned to painting, which he had neglected during his stay in Paris. There, in 1946, he married a professional dancer named Juliet Browner.

Innovations

Man Ray rediscovered the use of the photogram, a forgotten photographic technique that allowed him, without using a camera, to create images that he called rayograms, and which, according to him, produced a "surrealist" effect. His film The Return to Reason was the first cine-rayogram, that is, an entire film made without a camera. Man Ray also practiced solarization in his photographic art: rediscovered by his muse and mistress, Lee Miller, also a photographer, solarization is a technique that allows to reverse tones, and produces images that evoke the negative of a photograph. Finally, Man Ray was the first to use the photographic technique known as light painting, which consists of creating trails of light by combining the practice of long exposures and using several moving light sources. His film Space Writing (Self Portrait) made in 1935 is the first film using this technique.



Major successes


Among Man Ray's most famous works is Le violon d'Ingres, made in 1924, which depicts Kiki de Montparnasse, the photographer's muse, naked, her back adorned with cello sound holes drawn on her skin. This photograph was sold in 2022 for around ten million dollars. Another very famous photograph by Man Ray is Noire et Blanche, made in 1926. It again depicts Kiki de Montparnasse, her head lying on a table, holding an African mask in her left hand. The photograph, as its title indicates, emphasizes the contrast between the colors of the mask and Kiki de Montparnasse's face. This photographic work is also estimated at several million dollars. It was included in a collection of American stamps, entitled Modern Art in America, created in 2013.



Homages


In 1974, Man Ray was awarded the Royal Photographic Society's Progress Medal and Honorary Membership for his significant contribution to the technical and scientific development of photography and the image in general. In 1999, Man Ray was named one of the 25 most influential artists of the 20th century by ARTnews magazine, which highlighted his innovations in photography and film, as well as sculpture and painting. The magazine also praised his collages and assemblages, and his creative intelligence in general.