Rayograph

Artist:: Man Ray (American, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1890–1976 Paris)

Date:: 1922

Medium:: Gelatin silver print

Dimensions:: 23.9 x 17.8 cm (9 7/16 x 7 in.)

Classification:: Photographs

Credit Line:: Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, 1987

Accession Number:: 1987.1100.42

Rights and Reproduction:: © 2017 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Not on view

Man Ray made his "rayographs" without a camera by placing objects-such as the thumbtacks, coil of wire, and other circular forms used here-directly on a sheet of photosensitized paper and exposing it to light. Man Ray had photographed everyday objects before, but these unique, visionary images immediately put the photographer on par with the avant-garde painters of the day. Hovering between the abstract and the representational, the rayographs revealed a new way of seeing that delighted the Dadaist poets who championed his work, and that pointed the way to the dreamlike visions of the Surrealist writers and painters who followed.

Inscription: Signed in pencil on print, recto LR: "Man Ray 1922";

[Timothy Baum to Waddell, May 3, 1983]; John C. Waddell

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The New Vision: Photography between the World Wars. The Ford Motor Company Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art," September 23, 1989–December 31, 1989.

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. "The New Vision: Photography between the World Wars. The Ford Motor Company Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art," February 28, 1990–April 22, 1990.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art. "The New Vision: Photography between the World Wars. The Ford Motor Company Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art," May 10, 1990–July 15, 1990.

High Museum of Art. "The New Vision: Photography between the World Wars. The Ford Motor Company Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art," February 5, 1991–April 28, 1991.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. "The New Vision: Photography between the World Wars. The Ford Motor Company Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art," June 8, 1991–August 4, 1991.

IVAM, Centre Julio Gonzalez, Valencia. "The New Vision, IVAM, Centre Julio Gonzalez, Valencia," January 20, 1995–March 26, 1995.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Johnson Gallery, Selections from the Collection 53," January 26, 2010–April 25, 2010.

Hambourg, Maria Morris. The New Vision: Photography between the World Wars, Ford Motor Company Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1989. no. 100.

Lowe, Sarah M. Tina Modotti & Edward Weston: The Mexico Years. London: Barbican Art Gallery, 2004. no. 31.

Essays
Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968)
Photography and Surrealism
Surrealism

Timelines
The United States and Canada, 1900 A.D.–present

The New Vision: Photography between the World Wars. The Ford Motor Company Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Department

Photographs (36,099)

Artist / Maker / Culture

Man Ray (89)

Object Type / Material

Contact prints (72)

Gelatin silver prints (9,502)

Photograms (212)

Photographs (46,361)