Man Ray’s photograph of an arm is cropped so abstractly that it seems to metamorphose into other body parts—a knee, a calf, a thigh—or into some utterly unidentifiable yet heroic form. This image appeared on the cover of Formes Nues (1935), which also included the work of Brassaï, László Moholy-Nagy, Franz Roh, and George Platt Lynes, among others. In the magazine’s introduction, Man Ray wrote, "were it not for the fact that photography permits me to seize and to possess the human body and face in more than a temporary manner, I should quickly have tired of this medium."
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Inscription: Inscribed on print verso C: "To OMnum [?, scratched out]"; inscribed on print, verso LL: "32"; inscribed on print, verso LR: "arm";
[Robert Miller Gallery, New York]; John C. Waddell, New York (October 2, 1981
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–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–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–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–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–August 4, 1991.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Johnson Gallery, Selections from the Collection 1," December 4, 1992–May 4, 1993.
IVAM, Centre Julio Gonzalez, Valencia. "The New Vision, IVAM, Centre Julio Gonzalez, Valencia," January 20, 1995–March 26, 1995.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Evocative Fragments," February 14–June 14, 1998.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Framing a Century: Master Photographers, 1840–1940," June 3–September 1, 2008.
Jewish Museum, New York. "Alias Man Ray," November 15, 2009–March 14, 2010.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Naked before the Camera," March 27–September 9, 2012.
Musée d'Orsay. "MASCULINE / MASCULINE: The Naked Man in Art from 1800 to the Present Day," September 23, 2013–January 2, 2014.
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. 65.
Cogeval, Guy, Ulrich Pohlmann, and Xavier Rey. Masculin / Masculin: L'Homme nu dans l'Art de 1800 à nos Jours. Paris: Flammarion, 2013. no. 24.
Man Ray (American, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1890–1976 Paris)
1931
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