Facile by Man Ray (12 results)

Soft cover. Condition: Near Fine. 1st Edition. Text by Paul Eluard. Folio (241 x 184 mm). 12 black and white photographs. Original photo-illustrated card portfolio. One of 200 hors commerce copies (unnumbered) from a total edition of 1225. Some light creasing and toning to the covers; otherwise an exceptionally fresh, near fine copy.

Editions G.L.M., 1935, 1 volume de 185x245 mm environ, 14 feuillets non numérotés sous chemise à rabats illustrée, contenant les poèmes de Paul Eluard, illustrés de 12 photographies de Man Ray, tirées en héliogravure par Breger. Exemplaire N° 25, Un des 1200 exemplaires sur vélin dont 1000 numérotés de 21 à 1020. Petite mouillure claire dans la marge interne au bas du dos sur l'ensemble des feuillets, chemise externe frottée avec plis, intérieur bon état. La femme d Eluard, Nusch, joue le rôle de la muse, d une figure archétypale. Son corps est disposé de telle sorte qu il s intègre au livre, à sa matérialité. Première collaboration de Man Ray/ Paul Eluard.14 feuillets non numérotés. Poèmes de Paul Eluard illustrés de 12 Photographies de Man Ray, tirées en héliogravure par Breger.

Couverture souple. Condition: Très bon. Edition originale. Un volume in-4 en feuilles, pagination absente. Edition originale numérotée sur vélin. 12 photographies de Man Ray reproduites en héliogravure. Minimes rayures sur le premier plat, par ailleurs en très bonne condition. (Bibliographie : M. Parr, G. Badger, Le livre de photographies : une histoire volume I, Phaidon, Paris, 2005, p.104-105 - A. Roth, The Book of 101 Books, PPP Editions, New York, 2001, p.86-87).

Broché. Condition: Bon. Man Ray (illustrator). Ed. numérotée. 1 volume broché en faux-feuillets sous chemise à rabats illustrée de l'éditeur. Ouvrage illustré de 12 photographies de Man Ray tirées en héliogravure par Breger, Edition originale, celui-ci un des 1200 exemplaires numérotés sur vélin, seul tirage avec 25 Japon (First edition, one of 1200 numbered copies on velin paper). Bon exemplaire.

Paris, GLM, 1935. 1 vol. (185 x 240 mm) non paginé. Reliure à emboîtage avec plats à bandes de soie noire et de cuir argenté, titre gravé au laser sur le premier plat et gardes en papiers poncés (reliure signée de Tamara Lise). Édition originale. 12 photographies de Man Ray. Un des 1200 exemplaires numérotés sur vélin (n° 450). Envoi signé : «à Marcel Adéma, qui a pour la poésie le respect dû à la jeune et à la vieille, Paul Eluard». En 1935, Man Ray réalise une série de photos de Nusch, la seconde femme de Paul Éluard, rencontrée en 1929. C'est sur ces images que le poète écrit les poèmes d'amour de Facile, publié dans une mise en pages magistrale par le poète-typographe Guy Levis Mano. Man Ray suivra très attentivement toutes les étapes de la fabrication de ce livre raffiné, un des plus beaux livres surréalistes illustrés par la photographie. Premier biographe véritable d'Apollinaire, Pierre-Marcel Adéma s'était constitué une bibliothèque importante, évidemment sur son auteur préféré, mais plus généralement sur la poésie française de la première moitié du siècle. En plus d'une multitude d'ouvrages consacrés au poète, on lui doit la réalisation et le choix iconographique de l'Album Pléiade, publié en 1971, réalisé avec l'autre grand spécialiste de l'oeuvre, Michel Decaudin.

Couverture souple. Condition: Très bon. Edition originale. L un des 1000 exemplaires du tirage courant après 225 divers papiers, achevé d'imprimer le 24.10.1935. En feuilles sous couverture typo-photographique à rabats, 25 x 19 cm. 14 feuillets non numérotés. Poèmes de Paul Eluard illustrés de 12 Photographies de Man Ray, tirées en héliogravure par Breger. Bel ouvrage au sublime mariage entre texte et images, devenu fort rare. Chemise présentant une très courte déchirure au second plat ainsi que de légères traces de plis en bordure du dos. La fraîcheur des planches de cet exemplaire vient certainement combler ces petits accrocs.

Soft cover. Condition: Fine. 1st Edition. Quarto 24.5x18 cm., wrappers, 20(1)pp., loose as issued. No. 791 of 1000 copies on velin of 1220 overall. A very successful collaboration of poet and photographer, with extraordinary sensuous photos of Eluard s wife Nusch coupled with page design incorporating the poetry cycle therein. It is rightly acclaimed as one of the greatest surrealist publications. This is a fine, crisp copy, in custom clambshell box bearing hand-tooled leather spine.

First and limited edition, number 851 of 1,175 copies. One of the most important works in the photobook canon: "Although Man Ray participated in and produced hundreds of fruitful collaborative works in his life, Facile must be ranked among the most successful. The book combines Paul Éluard's love poems to his wife Nusch with Man Ray's photographs of her in an extremely elegant design, integrating Man Ray's solarized, superimposed, double-exposed and negative images into the page spreads in a way that makes image and text appear to intimately embrace. It is a fluent but not at all facile collaboration between the poet, the photographer, the model and muse, and the publisher Guy Lévis Mano. Nusch Éluard had become one of Man Ray's most important models. and was also one of Picasso's favourite models. She had just married Éluard the previous year. The Éluards remained in Paris throughout World War II and were very active in the Resistance. In 1943 they were forced to hide out in the Saint-Alban psychiatric hospital, where, weakened and demoralised, Nusch Éluard died of exhaustion in 1946. In Facile, she lives" (Roth). Parr & Badger I pp. 104-05 ("this small photobook has come to be regarded as one of the iconic French photobooks of the 1930s by virtue of its inclusion in many exhibitions devoted to the Surrealist movement"); Roth, 101, pp. 86-87; see also Renée Riese Hubert, Surrealism and the Book, 1988, pp. 73-83. Quarto. Original photographic wrappers with unbound signatures. Housed in a black cloth flat-back box by the Chelsea Bindery. With 12 heliogravure images by Ray. Wrapper edges slightly rubbed, with a couple of small creases to head of spine.

Paperback. Condition: Good. 1st Edition. Small, iconic photo book signed/inscribed by Man Ray. First/limited edition, #517/1,175 copies. Original photographic wrappers with unbound signatures. Contains highly successful love poems by Eluard and images by Man Ray. Signed by Author(s).

Soft cover. Condition: Near Fine. No Jacket. 1st Edition. One of 1,200 on velin, of which this is copy CLI of the roman-numbered hors commerce copies. This example inscribed on the half-title by both Ray and Elluard "a mon amis Louis de Gonzague-Frick". (Gonzague-Frick was a French poet, author and actor who was active in the French avant-garde movement of the time. He founded l'école poétique du Lunain in Paris in the year of Facile's publication - 1935.) Some wear to the wrappers, toning to the papers as usual, in modern clamshell box. Copies of this title inscribed by both are highly desirable; an association copy with respect to an important figure from the French avant-garde movement is all the more so. Inscribed by Author(s).

Paris, GLM, (24 octobre) 1935. 1 vol. (185 x 240 mm), non paginé. Broché. Édition originale.Illustrée de 12 photographies rayogrammes de Man Ray, en héliogravure. Un des 25 premiers exemplaires sur japon, celui-ci hors commerce. Envoi signé : « à Edouard de Rouvre avec mes très vives sympathies. Paul Eluard. » Ouvrage culte des surréalistes, Facile forme selon Parr et Badger un parfait ménage à trois en unissant la poésie, la photographie et la typographie, l'ensemble célébrant l'amour et le corps de Nusch. «This small has come to be regarded as one of the iconic French photobooks of the 1930 by virtue of its inclusion in many exhibitions devoted to the Surrealist movement [.] Man Ray's pictures of Nusch are appropriately simple, either done in high key tones, often solarized, or mysteriously dark and backlit» (Parr-Badger). Paul Éluard, Man Ray, Guy Levis Mano réunis autour de cinq poèmes et douze photographies, créent un jalon de l'édition illustrée marquant le réveil de l'érotisme dans l'art des années 1930, où, dans les nus de Man Ray, le corps n'apparaît jamais dans sa totalité selon un procédé propre à l'Homme-Lumière. La tête entière ne se montre qu'une seule fois ; les yeux jamais. « C'est en raison de l'intégration des images au texte que cet ouvrage a été fondamental pour le modernisme et une source d'inspiration pour des générations de graphistes » (Parr & Badger). Précieux exemplaire, offert sans doute au sortir de la guerre à un jeune homme prometteur âgé d'une vingtaine d'année : Evrard de Rouvre. Petit-fils de Charles Bourlon de Rouvre, qui lui légua une fortune considérable, le jeune homme fonde, à vingt et un ans, les Éditions Vrille, en 1944. Le premier livre publié est son propre recueil de poèmes, Instant, dont Éluard put avoir eu connaissance ; vient ensuite la revue Vrille, dont le premier numéro sur « La peinture et la littérature libres » est illustré par Oscar Dominguez : il réunit des textes et oeuvres de Georges Bataille, Henri Michaux, Max Ernst, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, qu'il voit défiler dans sa galerie d'antiquités du 38 avenue Pierre-Ier-de-Serbie, Présence des arts. Curieux, politiques, grands industriels et grands collectionneurs s'y presseront des années durant. La bibliophilie ne lui était pas étrangère : sa bibliothèque - dispersée en deux vacations (1979 et 1980) - ne contient que des livres choisis, voire somptueux, en grands papiers et belles reliures. Éluard y est le poète le plus représenté. Cet exemplaire de Facile n'y figure pas. Éluard s'est étrangement trompé sur le prénom - ce ne sera ni le premier ni le dernier - en orthographiant Evrard « Edouard ». De Rouvre connaîtra par la suite une longue carrière de producteur de cinéma, tout en poursuivant la direction de nombreuses autres sociétés. Il meurt tragiquement en 1979, assassiné par son majordome. Les exemplaires sur japon de Facile sont d'une grande rareté. Les exemplaires hors commerce ne semblent pas avoir été tous pourvus de la photographie originale solarisée normalement jointe aux exemplaires sur japon. Certains l'ont ; d'autres, non, et l'on rencontre également des exemplaires sur vélin enrichi d'un tirage original : il est fort probable qu'elles aient navigué, au gré des exemplaires et des dédicataires.

4to. (9 1/2 x 7 inches). pp. 52. Foliated in pencil 1-18 including 5 original photographs. Number 388 out of 1000 copies on papier velin from a total edition of 1,225 copies: 25 on Japan of which 5 were hors commerce, and 200 on papier velin hors commerce numbered VI to CCV. Original book is illustrated with twelve black and white heliogravure photographs, one of which is a double-page, with four poems. Extra-illustrated with 5 original Man Ray photographs, including one which is solarized, printed from original negatives between 1967 and 1970. Various image sizes: (7 1/2 x 6 inches to 9 x 7 inches). Bound by Henri Mercher (1912-1976) who worked with many prominent artists including Joan Miró and Jacques Villon (Gaston Duchamp). Lettered in gold on doublure [MERCHER]. Mercher patented a binding process using Plexiglass, as here. Quarter-bound in black Morocco lettered direct. Plexiglass boards, preserving intact publisher's original glossy pictorial wrappers. Black endpapers at rear, at the bottom of which is [1970] in gold numerals An extraordinary, embellished presentation copy, inscribed by Man Ray to his printer Serge Béguier near the beginning of their association, with 5 original Man Ray photographs of Paul and Nusch Éluard, printed by Béguier and in a binding by Henri Mercher, two of which are pencil signed, dated, and stamped on verso, and three of which are pencil signed, stamped on verso, and marked "E. A." (artist edition). "This small book has come to be regarded as one of the iconic French photobooks of the 1930s." - Parr and Badger, The Photobook Besides Duchamp, the poet Paul Éluard, a signatory to the Surrealist manifesto, was Man Ray's closest friend between the Wars. Man Ray and Éluard were frequent collaborators and together produced the 1935 photobook Facile, which features Éluard's poetry accompanied by Man Ray's composite photographs of Nusch Éluard (b. Maria Benz, 1906-1946). This copy of Facile is signed and inscribed by Man Ray to the printer of his photographs [à Serge Béguier bien amicalement! - Man Ray] in ink on the half-title. Serge Béguier (1934-1991) printed photographs for Man Ray in the late 1960s and 70s. Béguier was an artist in his own right, who worked often with the French poet Henri Chopin, with whom he made the short film L'Energie du sommeil. While little is known about Man Ray's early printers, it is documented that Man Ray exclusively worked with Pierre Gassmann (1913-2004) upon his return to Paris in 1951 until they had a falling out in the late-1960s. It is then that Man Ray found Serge Béguier at the PhotoBac Lab. One distinction between the two printers is that Gassmann used Ilford paper, while Béguier used Agfa paper. Béguier is perhaps better known today for the actions of his ex-wife, Hélène Béguier, who after Serge's death in 1991 began to sell fraudulent, unauthorized Man Ray prints using negatives she obtained from Béguier's studio. Further embellishments to this copy of Facile include prints of three nude photos of Nusch, two of which were reproduced as heliogravures in Facile, as well as prints of two other photos taken later, in 1939, when Man Ray visited Paul Éluard in Miguères, a village in France where Éluard had been stationed by the French Army. One of the 1939 photos, Man Ray and Paul Éluard, shows Man Ray with Éluard in army uniform, while the other, Paul et Nusch Éluard, is a photo of both Éluards gazing lovingly at one another. Each photo is signed and dated "1939" by Man Ray in pencil. They are both stamped "Man Ray Paris" on their backs. The three prints of photos taken for Facile are sensual black and white nude portraits of Éluard's wife, the muse of the Surrealists, Nusch Éluard, of whom Picasso painted a portrait. These three photos, referred to as Nude: Nusch Éluard, Nusch Nue, and Nusch Éluard in Silhouette, are signed and marked "E. A." (artist edition) by Man Ray in pencil and stamped on their versos, but are not dated. Nude: Nusch Eluard is solarized, and though the photo was taken for Facile, it was not included. The photographs themselves were likely printed from 1967 to 1970 and then signed and two were backdated to the date of the negatives by Man Ray, as was usual for him. The photos would have been printed by Béguier, to whom the book is inscribed. Man Ray's 12 heliogravures in Facile are accompanied by Éluard's poems, the titles of which are "Tu te leves l'eau se déplie"; l'Entente"; A la fin de l'année, de jour en jour plus bas, il enfouit sa chaleur comme une graine"; and "Facile et bien." The poems are love poems written for Nusch, Man Ray's model, who Éluard had married the year previous to publication. The two French Communists were to be deeply involved in the French Resistance, with Nusch dying tragically in 1946. The binding by the French book artist Henri Mercher was then state of the art: Mercher was a pioneer in using Plexiglass for bindings and held a patent for his innovation. Mercher was well known in modernist circles, and worked with many of the principal artists of the time. The binding of this copy of Facile is dated "1970," and with Mercher's death in 1976, it gives us a terminal date for this collection. Facile is a canonical photobook, one of the most beautiful of the twentieth century. It is elegantly designed and integrates "Man Ray's solarized, superimposed, double-exposed and negative images into the page spreads in a way that makes image and text appear to intimately embrace." The images of Nusch are "solarized nudes that drift across the pages as if in a dream" but are still "appropriately simple, either done in high key tones or mysteriously dark and backlit" (Parr & Badger). "From cover to cover the book points to a single universe expressed by two different languages. The poem is made up of images, and the images coalesce into a poem. The directness of the poet's voice makes the woman presence intensified by but hardly originating in the photographs. This immediacy in no way weake.