Man Ray

Georgia et George Blaine, Hollywood (acquis de l'artiste dans les années 1940)

Please note that measurements in inches are incomplete in the printed catalogue and should read 15 7/8 x 25 x 25 x 30 1/4 in. The canvas is not lined. There is a slight waviness to the canvas. There is no evidence of retouching under UV light. This work is in very good original condition.
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oil and charcoal on burlap canvas, in artist's original frame. Executed in Hollywood in 1947.

Peinte à Hollywood en 1947, cette composition audacieuse marque une étape de transition importante dans le peinture de Man Ray vers une sorte de sortie de l'abstraction. Sa production picturale commence véritablement dans les années 30 et culmine en 1948 à Hollywood. Vers la moitié des années 40, il se prit d'un regain d'intérêt pour la peinture non-abstraite et réintégra quelques éléments figuratifs dans ses compositions. En 1947, Man Ray fit un bref voyage à Paris pour vérifier la conservation de ses œuvres restées en France pendant la guerre et heureusement retées intactes. ce voyage lui redonna la volonté d'explorer les liens entre les arts et la science, direction qui polarisera son travail de la fin de 1947 à celle de l'année suivante, notamment pour sa série Shakespearean Equations où Man Ray retravailla à partir d'objets mathématiques qu'il avait photographiés en 1934. L'œuvre ici présentée, dans son cadre original conçu par Man Ray, épouse les dimensions d'un polygone irrégulier et compte parmi la poignée de tableux comparables peints dans les années 40. Man Ray avait trouvé une nouvelle manière de surprendre et d'accrocher l'attention du spectateur.

Painted in Hollywood in 1947, this unusual composition marks an important transition in Man Ray's painting which had remained predominantly abstract by way of Surrealism. As the intensity of his painting grew from the 1930s in Paris and culminated in 1948 in Hollywood, by the mid-1940s he was turning his attention to Non-Abstraction painting, bringing back Figurative forms into his compositions. In that same year, 1947, Man Ray briefly visited Paris to inspect his works, untouched by the war and re-ignited his long interest in the relationships between art and science, a topic that would eventually dominate his paintings of late 1947 and throughout 1948 when he was painting the series Shakespearean Equations, based upon Mathematical Objects he had photographed in Paris in 1934. The present canvas and its purpose built frame display irregular dimensions in the form of a polygon, one of a handful of irregular-shaped paintings from the 1940s. This was another of Man Ray's ways of grabbing the attention of the viewer.