MAN RAY - PHOTOGRAPH AND ITS DOUBLE

Today Man Ray's vintage photographs are among the most highly prized in the history of the medium, yet he shunned the title photographer. Instead Ray (1890-1976) cultivated an image of himself as jack of all arts who came upon his revolutionary photographic techniques by chance. In eight clearly written but rather dry texts, De l'Ecotais and her coauthors, a well-qualified group of French scholars and curators, make a persuasive case for the centrality of photography to Ray's art and, perhaps more importantly, the rigor with which he practiced the craft. This catalog draws on revelations from the settlement of Ray's widow's estate, which brought 12000 negatives and 5000 contact prints to the French National Museum of Modern Art. Many of the nearly 300 images here, often including crop marks and other indications of work practices, are published here for the first time. The only disappointment is the lack of clear correlation between the text and images. Still, this nearly definitive work deserves a place in all serious photography collections.--Eric Bryant, "Library Journal"