A century after its creation, this 1925 rayograph comes to market for the first t.mes . Although recorded in Man Ray Rayographies by Emmanuelle de l'Ecotais, the location of this original rayograph was unknown. It comes from the collects ion of Laura and Lewis Kruger, New York collects ors who championed and befriended some of the most influential international artists of the 20th century, including Man Ray. Lewis (1935 – 2024), a longt.mes senior managing partner at the law firm Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP, served as Man Ray’s personal attorney. The couple maintained a decades-long friendship with the artist, and it is believed this rayograph was acquired directly from Man Ray.

The objects discernible in the present rayograph—a small wooden artist's mannequin and a comb or similar object used to create narrow alternating bands of light and dark—are found in several variant rayographs (cf. Emmanuelle de l'Ecotais, Man Ray Rayographies, nos. 162, 163, and 165). Mannequins were a recurring motif in Man Ray’s work from the 1920s through the final decade of his life. Mannequin Fatigué, Man Ray’s iconic image of a seated mannequin between a sphere and cone, was first published in the June 1926 issue of La Révolution Surréaliste, and later featured on the cover of the catalogue for his 1962 photographic retrospective at the Paris National Library.

In his later years, he revisited the theme with the portfolio Resurrection of the Mannequins (1966) and the reissue of his earlier risqué tableau Mr. and Mrs. Woodman (1970). The present early rayograph—depicting an upside-down mannequin seen through translucent black-and-white bands—eschews narrative, instead embodying the enigmatic Surreality that defined Man Ray’s vision.

There are several labels from The Museum of Modern Art on a fragment of the original frame backboard accompanying this lot. Based on the loan number (36.1687) and circulating exhibition number (471), it is believed that this rayograph was included in Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism, which originated at The Museum of Modern Art in 1936 and traveled for several years to 10 locations. While the checklist published in the exhibition catalogue notes that objects “471-473. ‘Rayographs’” were “lent by the artist,” these works unfortunately were not illustrated.

Man Ray is currently the subject of Man Ray: When Objects Dream, a major exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, featuring approximately 160 objects, including more than 60 rayographs.