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Rayograph, Mr. and Mrs. Woodman

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© Artists Rights Society (ARS)


Rayograph, Mr. and Mrs. Woodman

circa 1930 (printed 1960)
photograph
12 in. x 9 1/2 in. (30.48 cm x 24.13 cm)
Gift of Edith Vallarino and Vincent Vallarino, 1991.7.3

Man Ray
American
1890–1976

Man Ray was an important figure in the Dada and Surrealist movements. Born Emmanuel Radnitsky in Philadelphia, the artist grew up in Brooklyn, adopting the name Man Ray before he was twenty years old. An interest in drawing led him to classes offered by Robert Henri (q.v.) and George Bellows (1882-1925) at the Ferrer Center in New York; afterward he lived in nearby Ridgefield, New Jersey, where he painted and published a variety of illustrated ephemera. Visits to Alfred Stieglitz's (q.v.) gallery, 291, and the Armory Show of 1913 stimulated Man Ray's interest in avant-garde art, and during the 1910s he participated in the modernist salons of Walter Arensberg and Katherine Dreier. Through Arensberg, Man Ray met proto-Dadaist Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), whom he came to esteem as a kindred spirit. Forging connections with the international Dada group led by Rumanian poet Tristan Tzara, the two artists launched the movement in New York in 1921.

Americans, however, had little use for the deliberate nonsense and nihilistic chaos of Dada, and in 1921 Man Ray followed Duchamp to Paris. Not long after his arrival, he began to experiment with light-sensitive paper, arraying objects on it to create visually intriguing and often humorous juxtapositions, which he dubbed "rayographs." Among the first to pursue the possibilities of avant-garde filmmaking, Man Ray also made a number of short features that earned him a central place among European Dadaists and Surrealists. To support his activities, the artist practiced portrait and fashion photography, earning a significant reputation for his magazine work. Following the outbreak of World War II, Man Ray returned to the United States and settled in Los Angeles. There he concentrated on painting and sculpture in a Surrealist vein. Back in France by 1951, the artist lived in Paris for the remainder of his life.

Man Ray's penchant for lighthearted yet slightly disturbing imagery is revealed in Mr. and Mrs. Woodman, a rayograph originally composed about 1930. In this image, the silhouetted forms of two artist's lay figures (the "wood men" alluded to in the title) adopt mincing poses suggestive of their infatuation with one another. A wavy pattern of light and dark striations partially obscures the outlines of the figures, serving as a kind of curtain and placing the viewer in an implicitly voyeuristic position. At the same time, however, the surrounding photographic frame heralds the seemingly private subject as "art" and invites closer inspection. Ultimately there is no vicarious pleasure behind the veil, only a pair of awkward and sexless wooden dolls. Echoing the paintings of Man Ray's American contemporary Guy Pene du Bois (1884-1958), Mr. And Mrs. Woodman appears to poke fun both at the stiffness of male-female relations and the propriety of artistic conventions.

A rayograph is a type of photogram -an image made in the darkroom without a camera. To make a photogram, one arranges an object or objects on a sheet of photographic paper. When the paper is exposed to light, it turns black, save for the portions covered by the object(s). The result is an x-ray-like image in which the arranged objects appear as ghostly white silhouettes. In his rayographs, Man Ray exploited both the physical characteristics and narrative possibilities of his chosen objects, creating images that are visually intriguing and thought provoking.

Because rayographs are produced directly on photographic paper without a negative, they are one-of-a-kind images. The Currier's Mr. and Mrs. Woodman is a photographic print made in 1960 after Man Ray's original rayograph of about 1930. Mr. And Mrs. Woodman was presented to the Museum by Edith and Vincent Vallarino in 1991.

VSD

REFERENCES

Merry A. Forresta, "Man Ray." In Jane Turner, ed., Dictionary of Art. 34 vols. New York: Grove, 1996. Vol. 20, pp. 287-288.

Merry Forresta, Stephen C. Foster, Billy Klüver et al. Perpetual Motif: The Art of Man Ray. Ex. cat. National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1988.

http://www.getty.edu/art/collections/objects/o53358.html. Accessed December 27, 2004.


Exhibition
2000 Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery, Keene State College, Keene, NH, "Moments in Time: Master Photographs from the Currier." Sept. 9 - Oct. 29.

2012 Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, NH, "A New Vision: Modernist Photography." Feb. 4 - May 13.

2021 Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, NH, "The Body in Art: From the Spiritual to the Sensual." April 1 - Sept.


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