Pablo Picasso
Man Ray (Emmanuel Radnitzky)
American, 1890–1976
1932
A 1932 gelatin silver print portrait by Man Ray that reduces a sitter to a stark, sculptural profile, using directional light to emphasize form and character.
What hits you first is the bold, high‑contrast silhouette—an almost classical profile carved into a pale ground, with glossy hair and the textured fall of a coat turned into planes of light and shadow.
The photograph shows how interwar modernist portraiture transformed faces into formal studies of light and shape, shaping later approaches to identity, collaboration, and photographic abstraction.
Medium
Gelatin silver print
Dimensions
irregular 11 3/4 × 9 1/4" (29.8 × 23.2 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of James Thrall Soby
Accession
103.1941
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
