Oct 17, 2014 - Sale 2361

Sale 2361 - Lot 49

Price Realized: $ 16,250
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 12,000 - $ 18,000
MAN RAY (1890-1976)
James Joyce. Silver print, 11 1/2x9 inches (29.1x22.9 cm.), with Man Ray's signature, in pencil, on recto and his 8 rue du Val-de-Grace, Paris 5e, France, Danton 92-95 hand stamp on verso. 1922; printed before 1938
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Additional Details

From the Zabriskie Gallery, New York City; to a Private New York Collector. Accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity signed by Virginia Zabriskie and dated June 9, 2006.

A rare, variant portrait of Joyce (1882-1941), which was created in anticipation of the publication of his groundbreaking novel, Ulysses. Originally, Joyce's work was published in serial form in The American Review, until a court banned it as obscene and publication work ceased. In 1922 Sylvia Beach of Shakespeare and Company decided to produce the novel and sent the author to Man Ray for publicity photographs. On February 2, 1922, Joyce's 40th birthday, she published the first edition. Subsequently, more than 18 different editions have been produced.

Although Man Ray remembered that Joyce "seemed to consider the sitting a terrible nuisance," he secured this moody and dramatic likeness with characteristic visual verve. Joyce's diminished eyesight was a constant challenge and one Man Ray appears to comment upon. While Joyce's dark suit is fully integrated into the black background, thereby foregrounding the artist's head, the intensely small, bright spot reflected in his spectacles may be seen to represent his illuminating vision.