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Preview image of work. gelatin silver print,  Untitled 10000

1988.17

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Untitled

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Artist

Man Ray (Emmanuel Radensky) (1890 - 1976, France)

Title

Untitled

Creation Date

1921

Century

20th century

Dimensions

8 3/4 in. x 6 7/8 in. (22.3 cm. x 17.4 cm.)

Classification

Photographs

Creation Place

North America, United States

Medium and Support

gelatin silver print

Credit Line

Museum Purchase, Lloyd O. and Marjorie Strong Coulter Fund

Copyright

This artwork may be under copyright. For further information, please consult the Museum’s Copyright Terms and Conditions.

Accession Number

1988.17

Photograms are camera-less images produced by placing objects onto photographic paper. Depending on the exposure time, the transparency of the object used, and the distances between object, paper, and light, the process may produce clearly defined silhouettes or nearly unrecognizable blurs. While the process had existed since photographic paper was invented, Man Ray claimed to have discovered the technique, which he described as “startlingly new and mysterious,” by accident and called his own versions “rayographs.” Developed alongside other “Dada” artistic strategies, which often courted chance and always defined conventional techniques, Man Ray’s use of ubiquitous objects, such as what appears here to be an electrical mixer, also references his friend Marcel Duchamp’s invention of the readymade.