Curators at Work - College of William and Mary

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1 9 6 4 MAn rAY (American, 1890-1976) il reale Assoluto (the real Absolute), 1964 lithograph, 42/100, sheet: 12 13/16 in. x 9 1/8 in. Purchase 1973.021 22 | Curators at Work
This lithograph was printed by Man Ray (1890-1976) 1 in 1964 to be used as an illustration in Arturo Schwarz’s book of surrealist poetry, Il Reale Assoluto, published in Milan. The image represents a hand that has been drawn with added details to resemble the figures of two nude women. The printed image also includes the numbers “17-3-64” printed upside down at the top right of the page-which is thought to be the date that Man Ray created the print-and an unexplained number “11112” at the bottom left. Although unsigned, this print is numbered 42/100, which is written in pencil in the bottom left corner of the page. 2 The image of a hand in this print is significant as hands are a motif that appear frequently in Surrealist art and literature. 3 Kirsten Powell, Professor of Art History at Middlebury College, comments in her essay, “Hands-On Surrealism,” how hands appear in different guises and embody a multiplicity of meanings. Powell also asserts that some Surrealist artists were interested in palm reading, “[b]ut in general, artists were more taken with the idea of the palm as a metaphor for surfaces whose unexpected transparency reveals something hidden.” 4 This idea of the “transparent hand” is echoed in the poem, “La Curva” that is on the page facing Man Ray’s illustration in Il Reale Assoluto. The motif of hands was also notably meaningful for Man Ray, whose chosen name resembles the French word for hand, main. Man Ray was known to appreciate the pun and often included hands or handprints in his own self-portrait photographs or constructions. The fact that the image of the hand can also be read as two nude women in a close embrace also suggests erotic potential of the body and a rethinking of the female form, two subjects that reoccur frequently over the course of Man Ray’s artistic career. Along these lines, Francis Naumann, a scholar who specializes in Dada and Surrealist art, humorously quipped: “In 1964, Man Ray was 74 years old, but some things never get off a man’s mind (pun intended).” 5 Yet, while hands and nude women were frequent motifs in Man Ray’s photography and sculptures, the print does not fit into a neat timeline of his work but appears as an example of experimentation and rethinking of similar motifs in another medium. This is arguably characteristic of Man Ray, as the author Merry A. Foresta asserts in her essay, “Lost in Translation: Man Ray and the Shifting Milieu of Modernism”: “For most of the twentieth century Man Ray sampled from a variety of aesthetic ideas and critical precepts, including American modernism, Parisian Dada, and Surrealism on both sides of the Atlantic. As a result his art had no linear progression that would give it stylistic cohesion. He compensated by offering a body of work based on ideas rather than form, producing art in various media that could accommodate a range of interpretations.” 6 Moreover, this would also give reason as to why characteristically Surrealist themes and motifs were being reconsidered and used as an illustration decades after the artistic movement had ended. 1-2This book also contains other illustrations by Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp, including Duchamp’s Certificat de Lecture, a lithograph that depicts Four Readymades as noted by Professor Francis Naumann, email to author, February 15, 2011. 3Kirsten H. Powell, “Hands-On Surrealism,” Art History 20.4 (1997): 517, accessed February 16, 2011. 4Kirsten H. Powell, “Hands-On Surrealism,” Art History 20.4 (1997): 517, Kathryn Fay ‘11 accessed February 16, 2011. 5Professor Francis Naumann, email to author, February 15, 2011; Kirsten H. Powell, “Hands-On Surrealism,” Art History 20.4 (1997): 523, accessed February 16, 2011. 6Merry A. Foresta, “Lost in Translation: Man Ray and the Shifting Milieu of Modernism” in Mason Klein’s Alias Man Ray: The Art of Reinvention, (New Haven, Yale University Press, 2009), 107. 16 Memoranda for 16 Artists | 23
Page 1 and 2: Curators at Work 16 Memoranda for t
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Page 6 and 7: 1 8 0 5 Attributed to Gilles-louis
Page 8 and 9: 1 8 9 3 henri-eDMonD DelACroix, cal
Page 10 and 11: 1 9 0 9 Arthur B. DAvies (American,
Page 12 and 13: 1 9 2 3 Attilio PiCCirilli (America
Page 14 and 15: 1 9 2 9 BlAnChe lAzzell (American,
Page 16 and 17: 1 9 3 7 thoMAs hArt Benton (America
Page 18 and 19: 1 9 4 5 MAx WeBer (American, 1881-1
Page 20 and 21: 1 9 5 3 MArino MArini (italian, 190
Page 24 and 25: 1 9 6 9 PABlo PiCAsso (spanish, 188
Page 26 and 27: 1 9 7 2 ClAes olDenBurG (American,
Page 28 and 29: 1 9 7 4 JiM Dine (American, b. 1935
Page 30 and 31: 1 9 7 8 JAsPer Johns (American, b.
Page 32 and 33: 1 9 8 8 DonAlD K. sultAn (American,
Page 34 and 35: 1 9 8 8 WAYne thieBAuD (American, b
Page 36 and 37: 2 0 0 3 JAune QuiCK-to-see sMith (n
Page 38 and 39: 2 0 0 3 JAune QuiCK-to-see sMith (n

Curators at Work - College of William and Mary

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