Man Ray

Inscribed first edition, second issue of the definitive contemporary collection of Man Ray’s photographs.

• Man Ray, [pseud. of Emmanuel Radnitzky].
• Includes a portrait of the artist by Picasso.
• Texts by Andre Breton, Paul Eluard, Rrose Sélavy [Marcel Duchamp], Tristan Tzara.
• First edition, second issue with cancel title with fictitious "Deuxième édition" designation. 
• 101 gravure plates after photographs by Man Ray.
• Hartford, Connecticut; Paris; New York: James Thrall Soby; Cahiers d’Art; Random House, [1934].
• 1 vols.
• 4to.
• Original spiral-bound photographically illustrated wrappers.
• Gift inscription on verso of front wrapper beneath Man Ray inscription.
• In a custom half black morocco-backed slipcase and chemise.

With 101 gravure reproductions of photographs and "rayographs" and essays by his contemporaries, leading figures of the Dada and Surrealist movements of Paris and New York, including Breton, Eluard, Duchamp (written in German under the pseudonym "Rrose Sélavy") and Tristan Tzara. With large inscription on the verso of the front wrapper, "Man Ray / Paris — Jan 1959." 

A work almost always encountered in its second issue with the fictitious statement "Deuxième édition" on the title, an attempt "to generate demand where none existed by suggesting the edition had sold out...Copies with the original title page are exceedingly rare." (Roth)

Beneath Man Ray's inscription is a gift inscription to Judy and Julius Rosenwald II. "Dooley," as he was known, was the son of the celebrated collector Lessing Rosenwald and the grandson of Julius Rosenwald, part owner of Sears Roebuck.

Roth 101, p. 80.