Facile
Artist: Man Ray (American, 1890-1976)
Publisher: Éditions G.L.M. (Guy Lévis Mano), Paris, 1935
Printer: text: Éditions G.L.M., Paris
reproductions: Breger, [s.l.]
Author: Paul Éluard (French, 1895-1952)
Date: 1935
Dimensions:
book: 9 5/8 x 7 3/16 in. (244 x 182mm)
page: 9 1/2 x 7 1/16 in. (241 x 179mm)
Medium: Reproductions: 13 photolithographs of photographs, incl. cover
Text: letterpress
Paper: ivory wove paper
Classification: Books
Credit Line: Molly and Walter Bareiss Art Fund
Object number: 1987.9
Label Text:Publisher Guy Lévis Mano produced books from 1923 to 1974 under the name G.L.M. He turned to publication of the Surrealist poets in the 1930s. G.L.M. offered a limited number of each book with an original print or photograph. These sold well and subsidized trade editions without original artwork.
One of the finest editions to come from G.L.M. was Facile, a collaboration between the American photographer Man Ray and French poet Paul Éluard. The book features images of Man Ray’s model, Nusch, whom Éluard married in 1934. Éluard’s poems are love poems, and Man Ray captures both a charm and sensuality in Nusch’s poses and in the integration of text and image. In the photographs, her nude body is variously superimposed, backlit, and solarized. The forms drift across the pages, as if in a dream. Éluard and Man Ray, both Surrealists, explored sexual liberation as part of the liberation of the mind. As so often in Surrealist art, however, women's role here is confined to those of passive muse and object of desire.
One of the finest editions to come from G.L.M. was Facile, a collaboration between the American photographer Man Ray and French poet Paul Éluard. The book features images of Man Ray’s model, Nusch, whom Éluard married in 1934. Éluard’s poems are love poems, and Man Ray captures both a charm and sensuality in Nusch’s poses and in the integration of text and image. In the photographs, her nude body is variously superimposed, backlit, and solarized. The forms drift across the pages, as if in a dream. Éluard and Man Ray, both Surrealists, explored sexual liberation as part of the liberation of the mind. As so often in Surrealist art, however, women's role here is confined to those of passive muse and object of desire.
Not on view
In Collection(s)