Reproduction of a Rayograph

Man Ray’s “rayographs” involved the exposure of photosensitive paper in direct contact with physical objects. The surrealist artist discovered this technique in a darkroom accident, while making prints of his fashion photographs for the couturier Paul Poiret. Until then, he had primarily used photography as a financial support for his less lucrative painting practice.

Because this photographic process produced unique works without a negative, Man Ray then photographed them in order to publish reproductions in both avant-garde art and fashion contexts. By the 1960s, Man Ray had extended this interest in the reproduction of original works of art to replicas and multiples of some of his best-known surrealist objects—some produced in his own studio, others in collaboration with gallerists and by the artist Daniel Spoerri’s Editions MAT.

In 1963, the year of publication of his autobiography Self-Portrait, Man Ray produced this print for a retrospective exhibition of his 1920s-era rayographs. Expressing the dichotomy of his photographic procedure, the artist wrote, “while my Rayographs were conceived purely in line with my other activities in painting, etc. as original and non-commercial work, I understand that they can be a source of inspiration to the whole modern trend of publicity.”