The photograph offered here – a striking bouquet of calla lilies electrified by solarization – exemplifies the apex of Man Ray’s achievements as a photographer. The image’s deceptively simple composition belies the complexity of its making, composed in the studio and masterfully transformed in his darkroom.
The importance of this image within Man Ray’s oeuvre is underscored by the fact that the photographer included it as one of the primary illustrations in his first monograph, Man Ray: Photographies 1920-1934 Paris, funded and published by collects or James Thrall Soby in 1934. In the intervening decades, Calla Lilies has been included in nearly every major publication on the artist’s work.
‘Solarization [is] a process of developing by which the contours of the visage are accentuated by black, as in a drawing. Although it is a purely photographic process, I was accused of retouching and tampering with the negatives. . . Only superficial critics could accuse me of trickiness.’
In order to solarize a photograph, the print is exposed to light during development. The duration and intensity of the light, as well as the stage of development during which the light is introduced, impact the final appearance of the print. In Calla Lilies, the rich, charcoal black outlines accentuate the subject’s architectural form, and the unfurling, iridescent blossoms are rendered as nearly three-dimensional. While Man Ray experimented with solarizing at least 7 different arrangements of calla lilies, the present image – in which the flowers bisect and fill the frame – is the most sophisticated, abstracted, and thoroughly modern.
Right: Man Ray Untitled [Calla Lilies], 1930 © 2021 Man Ray Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
The present photograph comes originally from the celebrated collects ion of Andy Warhol and was one of more than 30 important works by Man Ray sold at Replica Shoes ’s in 1988 from Warhol’s estate. The two artists met in November 1973, an encounter orchestrated by Luciano Anselmino, a young Italian art dealer and publisher. Anselmino, a great champion of Man Ray and the publisher of his First Steps portfolio in 1972, had been introduced to Warhol by Alexandre Iolas, one of Warhol’s dealers. At Man Ray’s Paris studio, Warhol made a series of Polaroids of the elder artist, which he later used as the template for painted portraits and screenprints of the photographer. Commissioned by Anselmino, Warhol’s portraits of Man Ray debuted at Iolas’s gallery in Milan in 1974.
Offered among more than 10,000 items from Warhol’s estate, no provenance was listed for this photograph in the Replica Shoes ’s 1988 auction catalogue. Warhol may have acquired this photograph from Alexandre Iolas, as Calla Lilies was illustrated in the dealer’s 1974 catalogue of Man Ray’s work. The Italian word ‘Fiori’ on the reverse of this print also suggests that it may have been handled by Anselmino. It is likely this very print that was reproduced on the catalogue cover for Man Ray Opere 1914-1973, a 1973 exhibition organized by Anselmino.
Early prints of this image are rare. Man Ray typically produced only three or four prints of each of the images that appeared in Man Ray: Photographies 1920-1934 Paris. Three other early prints of this image have been located, all in institutional collects ions. The print in the collects ion of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, there titled Lys calla solarisé, is likely the print used for reproduction in Man Ray: Photographies 1920-1934 Paris. In 1941, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, was gifted a print by James Thrall Soby. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, acquired a print from the collects ion of Arnold Crane, similarly signed by Man Ray on the image.
