Curator: Dr. The exhibition was organised by the Art Gallery of New South Wales where it set an attendance record for photography exhibitions, with over 52, visitors, before travelling to Brisbane and Melbourne — which exhibitions did in those days between state capitals, alas no longer.
Concentrating on his portrait photographs during his Paris years, this exhibition includes more than portrait photographs made by the artist in Paris between and And while his portrait photographs may be experimental and groundbreaking — all about technique — are they good portraits? The doll-like beauty of Kiki de Montparnasse c. A volcanic unconscious. Who writes this stuff? I often feel I am looking at different photographs than the ones other people are writing about. It captures the whole of creative expression — the surreal and sorrowful, the conflict and music, the desperation and freedom that comprise the human narrative.
You had made it… immortalised in the negative, promoted in the positive. There is the key. After all, Man Ray was running a commercial photographic studio with Berenice Abbott as his assistant in order to make a living. After Man Ray fired her in Abbott set up her own studio and they became business rivals. He takes the approach of a scientist, but translates it into the painting with superb delicacy and finesse.
Science, knowledge and atmosphere. A final thought emerges in my consciousness. I wondered whether there is a photograph of Man Ray by Berenice Abbott? Not that I can find….
Many thankx to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image. But what about the subjects? Michael Taylor. This is actually Man Ray taking your portrait.
