Man Ray’s Noire et blanche from 1926 is an icon of Surrealism and undeniably one of the most celebrated images of the 20th century. Defying neat categorization, it is a mingling of motifs related to complex social issues of the period: fashion and beauty standards, the appropriation of art and artifacts from Africa in European artwork, and the development of a Surrealist language. An ode to Kiki de Montparnasse’s beauty and evidence of 1920s obsession with the exotic, it is also a work imbued with Surrealist themes of the unconscious, dreams, sexuality, and clever juxtaposition.

The present photograph is one of the first prints of the image to have appeared at auction, originally sold at Sotheby's Belgravia in 1978 only a few years after photographs auctions in London began. As was common in these earliest auctions when scholarship was nascent, no explanation was provided regarding the assumed printing date of this photograph. In the nearly 50 years since this photograph was first sold, however, connoisseurship of Man Ray's photographs has become increasingly sophisticated, while the works themselves, in the open marketplace, have become ever more scarce. Of Noire et blanche in particular, the evolving scholarship of Man Ray images has only confirmed the photograph's central position within the photographer's oeuvre, and its correspondingly high value in the market's pantheon.

After a prodigious period of artistic activity in New York from 1912 to 1920, including being a founding member of Société Anonyme, Inc., publishing Dada-inspired publications, and creating multi-disciplinary artworks, Man Ray felt the pull of Paris and the desire to commune with other artists active in the Dada movement. In July 1921 he boarded a steamer bound for Europe, eventually settling in Montparnasse, preferring the multi-cultural population and the active nightlife in the bohemian neighborhood. In December of that year he met the legendary figure Kiki de Montparnasse (née Alice Prin). In addition to being a feature of the Montparnasse social scene, Kiki was a popular model for artists including Chaïm Soutine, Francis Picabia, and Tsuguharu Foujita. Captivated by her charm and beauty, Man Ray took his first photographs of Kiki shortly after they met. By July 1922, they were living together as a couple at 31 bis, rue Campagne Première.

Man Ray took copious photographs of Kiki throughout their relationship. There are over 100 negatives featuring Kiki taken between 1921 and 1929 at the Centre Pompidou, the great repository of Man Ray’s vast archive. While he initially focused on straightforward portraits and nude studies, the period between 1924 and 1926 was particularly noteworthy for Man Ray’s creation of two of the most essential Surrealist works: Le Violon d’Ingres (1924) and Noire et blanche (1926).

In May 1926, Man Ray’s Noire et blanche was reproduced in French Vogue with the title ‘Visage de nacre et masque de ébène' [mother of pearl face and ebony mask]. The Vogue commission was an opportunity for Man Ray to introduce his work to the Parisian upper class by inclusion in a respected magazine. Man Ray created something that sat within his own unique visual language, yet was not out of place in a 1920s high-fashion periodical.

At its most basic, Noire et blanche is a study of binary relationships: black and white, animate and inanimate, smooth and rough, upright and sideways, shiny and matte. The urge to create playful juxtapositions was wholly in line with Man Ray’s photographic work of this period. His cameraless experimentations, or ‘Rayographs,’ are perhaps the most overt examples of this thematic obsession, but he also explored it in myriad compositions, seemingly obsessed with the endless ways to portray contrasts or opposites.

With her dark cupid’s bow lips and slicked-back hair, Kiki embodied the Jazz Age style of 1920s Paris. She was not in the least out of place in the pages of Vogue, where every model or illustration was depicted in the same flapper fashion, sometimes almost to a degree of caricature. Kiki’s alabaster face is pictured perpendicular to an upright, darkly-stained Baule mask, held in her left hand. Here, the mask shape, sculpted hair and eyes perfectly echo Kiki’s own stylized face. Kiki is pictured with her eyes closed, alluding to the Surrealist preoccupation with dreams, the unconscious mind, psychoanalysis, and the irrational.

While the typical 1920s French Vogue reader was likely unaware of the intended use of the Baule mask for masquerade ceremonies in Côte d’Ivoire, they would have been cognizant of and influenced by African aesthetics, which had become extremely popular in France. From appropriation of fabric patterns to the explosion of interest in African antiquities, art, dance, and music, African or “exotic” style touched all aspects of French culture. Man Ray’s Noire et blanche was fully in line with the appearance of typical editorial and advertisement for the magazine.

Scholarship by Wendy A. Grossman and Steven Manford established that the Baule mask pictured in this photograph belonged to George Sakier, an acquaintance of Man Ray and Junior Art Director at Vogue in Paris.^[1] The cultural influence of African sculpture, masks, and ceremonial objects directly relates to the work of other leading 20th century artists including Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Constantin Brâncuși, who were all collectors of African objects.

The profusion of inscriptions, stamps, and symbols on the reverse of the present photograph tell a rich story about the print's history and provide invaluable context for its dating. The photographer’s square '31 bis, Rue Campagne Première, Paris XIVe’ studio stamps correspond to his Montparnasse address. While these stamps cannot be used as exact chronological markers, approximate years of usage have been assigned by Man Ray Research Scholar Steven Manford in his primary reference catalogue for Man Ray’s studio stamps. By 1935, Man Ray had moved from his Rue Campagne Première address to 8, rue du Val-de-Grâce, also in Montparnasse. The reverse also bears a 'reproduction interdite' stamp, which according to Manford, Man Ray was encouraged to create and use by 1934 when he was contributing work to fashion magazines and was also in agreement with publisher James Thrall Soby to create his first monograph, Man Ray: Photographs 1920-1934.

Soby’s monograph on Man Ray is organized into five thematic chapters, with accompanying texts in English and French by Marcel Duchamp, Tristan Tzara, Paul Éluard, André Breton and Man Ray. The reverse of the present work is annotated by Man Ray 'Original', 'Haut' [‘top’], and 'Page 44' in pencil. These annotations correspond to the page number and placement of the illustration of this image within the Soby-published monograph on Man Ray, suggesting this print may have been used for reproduction or layout purposes. Similar notations can be found on prints of other images used for Man Ray: Photographs 1920-1934, including Nude with Shadow (p. 33) and Nude with Raised Arm (p. 34) which sold at auction in 2010 and 2021 respectively. Additional notations and canceled page numbers on the reverse of the present print point to its likely continued use in multiple publications.

In “Unmasking Man Ray's Noire et blanche,” Man Ray Research Scholar Steven Manford traces the evolution of the 'Noire et blanche' negatives and internegatives over the decades, concluding that with successive printings of the image, Man Ray retouched certain areas in pursuit of his fully-realized vision.^[2] There are several generations of prints that can be identified by cropping, retouching, and signature in known prints. It is believed that Man Ray’s “ideal” version of this image is one that has been retouched so that an unruly stray hair on Kiki’s ear has been removed, as well as a small mole on her neck. Her chin and cheeks have been carefully thinned, and her facial features have been accentuated or reshaped slightly to look more stylized.

While most known prints of this image were made from an internegative after a retouched print, the present print was likely made in Man Ray’s rue Campagne Première darkroom from his original glass plate negative as evidenced by the distinct tight cropping and evident retouching. Here, there is careful balance between the two facial shapes and their cast shadows, not on Kiki’s arm or on the surface on which she rests her head, as is the case with other generations of prints.

Man Ray was a fearless experimenter. His calling card was constant improvisation. No two prints of this image are identical as a result of his deliberate different cropping, numerous types of photographic paper used, and retouching to various degrees. Most of these prints are in museum collections and thus, opportunities to acquire an early print of this image are few and far between. Rarer still is the opportunity to acquire what was considered by Man Ray to be the ideal composition, printed by the artist and selected to represent him–and his favorite photograph–in the monograph that introduced his work to a worldwide audience.

Another similarly-cropped early print of the image is in The Manfred Heiting Collection at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

^[1] Wendy A. Grossman and Steven Manford, ‘Unmasking Man Ray's Noire et blanche,' American Art, vol. 20, no. 2, Summer 2006, p. 135
^[2]Grossman and Manford, p. 143.