Lot #83: MAN RAY - Calla Lilies - Original vintage photogravure

 

Artist: Man Ray (American, 1890 - 1976).
Title: "Calla Lilies [solarization]".
Medium: Original vintage photogravure.
Date: Composed 1930. Printed 1934.
Dimensions: Image size: 10 3/4 x 8 5/8 in. (273 x 219 mm).
Lot Note(s): Stamped with the photographer's name, verso. Edition unknown, presumed small. High-grade archival paper. Printed to the edge of the sheet. Fine, quality printing. Very good to fine condition; affixed to very thin and supple archival acid-free support sheet, not mount/board. Comment(s): "'Something crawled across my foot in the darkroom and I let out a yell and turned on the light." Thus began Lee Miller, Man Ray's artistic collaborator and lover, in a 1975 interview recalling her version of how the two artists discovered the solarization process. Miller continued, "I never did find out what it was, a mouse or what. Then I quickly realized that the film was totally exposed: there in the development tank, ready to be taken out, were a dozen practically fully-developed negatives of a nude against a black background . . . Man Ray grabbed them, put them in the hypo, and looked at them later. The background and the image couldn't heal together, so there was a line left which he called 'solarization.'" While working with Miller, Man Ray made numerous photographs exploring the effects of tone reversal in solarization. This image, part of a series of calla lilies, shows the thin black line that separates areas where reversal has occurred from areas where it has not. (Courtesy: Getty Museum). See: www.manraytrust.com, pg.24. Image copyright ADAGP/Man Ray Trust/BNF/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. [22118-2-300]