Électricité. Dix Rayogrammes de Man Ray et un Texte de Pierre Bost
Man Ray. Bost, Pierre
Paris. CPDE (Compagnie Parisienne de Distribution d'Electricité). 1931
Man Ray's 'Electricité', an excellent, unsophisticated copy, with the original compliment slip.
From the edition limited to 500 copies each stamp-numbered to the justification (the justification and achevé d'imprimer are printed to the interior of the card portfolio).
The compliment slip, a rectangular sheet of card (90 x 120 mm) printed recto only, features the text: 'AVEC LES COMPLIMENTS / DE LA COMPAGNIE PARISIENNE / DE DISTRIBUTION D'ÉLECTRICITÉ'.
This work was commissioned by a French electric company (La Compagnie Parisienne de Distribution d'Électricité) to promote and publicise the use of electricity. The portfolio consists of 10 photogravures made from Man Ray's original rayograms; each rayogram makes use of some electrical device in the home. The conception is brilliant and the images among the most direct and uncontrived in Man Ray's oeuvre. 'Electricité' is also notable as Man Ray's last intensive investigation of the rayogram process.
The plates are titled as follows (all plates bear the caption 'Electricité'): Le Monde; La Ville; La Maison; Salle de Bain; Lingerie; Salle à Manger; Cuisine; Le Souffle; Électricité (two plates).
'The most lasting testament to Miller and Man Ray's work together is undoubtedly the portfolio 'Electricité', which was commissioned by the Compagnie parisienne de distribution d'électricité (CPDE), a private company that launched an advertising campaign (including films, posters, ads, brochures, and a magazine) beginning in 1928 to promote domestic consumption of electricity ...The finished portfolio, which combined rayographs, solarizations, and composite photographs ... was one of the last significant early twentieth-century works produced in photogravure, a time-consuming process of photomechanical reproduction by which photographs are etched into copper plates and printed in ink.' (Stephanie d'Alessandro and Stephen C. Pinson).
'Man Ray's Electricité (Electricity) is not only one of the most ravishing and sought-after of company photobooks, but it contains a cogent suite of photographs that the leading American Dadaist and commercial photographer himself never bettered. The ideas are generally simple, but formally adroit, even witty - full of visual poetry and delight ... Electricity is, of course, invisible, and in much of the portfolio Man Ray seeks to make the invisible visible, creating visual equivalents for electrical power ... Solarized images look as if they are pulsating with hidden energy ... They [CPDE] ended up with one of the most successful unions between commerce and the artistic avant garde, a monument of modernist book-making and a thoroughly contemporary, unexpected, beautiful and frequently playful vision of the brave new world of electrical energy.' (Parr / Badger).
'Les romans d'anticipation accordent volontiers à l'électricité le rôle de chef accessoiriste sur leurs scènes imaginaires, et la chargent de toutes les besognes; on voit en elle la machine qui réalise les désirs, comme pour se justifier de les avoir d'abord fait naître. 'Presser sur un bouton' est devenu le geste magique des contes modernes et futurs. L'anneau de Gygès est aimanté, la lampe d'Aladin est électrique, comme les astres de Man Ray.' (Bost writing in the 'Texte').
[Parr & Badger II, 183; see d'Alessandro and Pinson's 'Man Ray: When Objects Dream', New York, 2025].
From the edition limited to 500 copies each stamp-numbered to the justification (the justification and achevé d'imprimer are printed to the interior of the card portfolio).
The compliment slip, a rectangular sheet of card (90 x 120 mm) printed recto only, features the text: 'AVEC LES COMPLIMENTS / DE LA COMPAGNIE PARISIENNE / DE DISTRIBUTION D'ÉLECTRICITÉ'.
This work was commissioned by a French electric company (La Compagnie Parisienne de Distribution d'Électricité) to promote and publicise the use of electricity. The portfolio consists of 10 photogravures made from Man Ray's original rayograms; each rayogram makes use of some electrical device in the home. The conception is brilliant and the images among the most direct and uncontrived in Man Ray's oeuvre. 'Electricité' is also notable as Man Ray's last intensive investigation of the rayogram process.
The plates are titled as follows (all plates bear the caption 'Electricité'): Le Monde; La Ville; La Maison; Salle de Bain; Lingerie; Salle à Manger; Cuisine; Le Souffle; Électricité (two plates).
'The most lasting testament to Miller and Man Ray's work together is undoubtedly the portfolio 'Electricité', which was commissioned by the Compagnie parisienne de distribution d'électricité (CPDE), a private company that launched an advertising campaign (including films, posters, ads, brochures, and a magazine) beginning in 1928 to promote domestic consumption of electricity ...The finished portfolio, which combined rayographs, solarizations, and composite photographs ... was one of the last significant early twentieth-century works produced in photogravure, a time-consuming process of photomechanical reproduction by which photographs are etched into copper plates and printed in ink.' (Stephanie d'Alessandro and Stephen C. Pinson).
'Man Ray's Electricité (Electricity) is not only one of the most ravishing and sought-after of company photobooks, but it contains a cogent suite of photographs that the leading American Dadaist and commercial photographer himself never bettered. The ideas are generally simple, but formally adroit, even witty - full of visual poetry and delight ... Electricity is, of course, invisible, and in much of the portfolio Man Ray seeks to make the invisible visible, creating visual equivalents for electrical power ... Solarized images look as if they are pulsating with hidden energy ... They [CPDE] ended up with one of the most successful unions between commerce and the artistic avant garde, a monument of modernist book-making and a thoroughly contemporary, unexpected, beautiful and frequently playful vision of the brave new world of electrical energy.' (Parr / Badger).
'Les romans d'anticipation accordent volontiers à l'électricité le rôle de chef accessoiriste sur leurs scènes imaginaires, et la chargent de toutes les besognes; on voit en elle la machine qui réalise les désirs, comme pour se justifier de les avoir d'abord fait naître. 'Presser sur un bouton' est devenu le geste magique des contes modernes et futurs. L'anneau de Gygès est aimanté, la lampe d'Aladin est électrique, comme les astres de Man Ray.' (Bost writing in the 'Texte').
[Parr & Badger II, 183; see d'Alessandro and Pinson's 'Man Ray: When Objects Dream', New York, 2025].
[2 bifolia (text) + 10 leaves of plates]. Folio. (384 x 284 mm). Leaf with title and Bost's text recto and verso and 10 rayographs by Man Ray printed in photogravure, each signed in the plate and mounted to large sheets of card as issued, each within protective glassine bifolium with printed title, justification and achevé d'imprimer to interior of card portfolio; sheet size: 380 x 280 mm. Original publisher's printed card portfolio with typographic design in blue and black. <br>
#48739
