Oct 18, 2018 - Sale 2489

Sale 2489 - Lot 187

Price Realized: $ 6,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 6,000 - $ 9,000
MAN RAY [EMANNUEL RADNITSKY] (1890-1976)
Gertrude Stein. Warm-toned silver contact print, the image measuring 3 1/4x2 3/8 inches (8.5x6 cm.), with Man Ray's 31 bis rue Campagne Première, Paris hand stamp on verso. Circa 1928

Additional Details

Acquired from Galerie 1900-2000, Paris, France; to a Private American Collector, in 2007.

This compelling portrait was reproduced in the catalogue for the exhibition Man Ray, 1890-1976, September 18-December 18, 2004 (Ronny Van Velde, Ludion Press), no. 236.

Stein sat for this portrait after her masterpiece The Making of Americans, which was written from 1906 to 1911, was published (in 1925). The first major modern experimental novel in English, its elusive narrative and running commentary about writing reflects the influence of the artistic movement known as Cubism.

But Stein was not only a genius-writer. She was responsible for championing modernism in Paris (as a patron, critic and writer), and with her partner, Alice B. Toklas, was a pioneer of what has come to be known as "a gay sensibility."