Untitled (plate 6) from the album Champs Délicieux
Man Ray (Emmanuel Radnitzky)
American, 1890–1976
1922
A gelatin silver print made from a rayograph in which Man Ray placed everyday objects directly on light-sensitive paper to record their stark white silhouettes against a deep black field.
You notice two contrasting, almost anthropomorphic forms—a crisp, cone-shaped white mass pierced by five thin rod-like shadows on the left and a soft, feathery hourglass silhouette topped by a delicate spire on the right—whose sharp edges and fuzzy fringes make them feel simultaneously solid and ephemeral.
Created during Man Ray’s experimental rayograph series of the early 1920s, this work helped push photography beyond the camera into direct, chance-driven encounters between light and object, influencing Surrealist practice and the later revival of photograms as expressive, nonrepresentational images.
Medium
Gelatin silver print after rayograph
Dimensions
8 7/8 × 6 13/16" (22.5 × 17.3 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Fund
Accession
253.1935.6
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
