Paris – La Révolution Surréaliste sale at Bonhams Cornette de Saint Cyr on 29 March 2023 in Paris will offer a wide selection of European paintings and works of art from the surrealist movement. Among the highlights are photographs by Man Ray from the Collection of Jacqueline Barsotti-Goddard, showcasing his unique experimental photography skills and technique. Completely fresh to the market and previously unseen in public, the collection was gifted by Man Ray to Jacqueline over the course of many years in recognition of their long friendship and creative collaborations.
Man Ray (1890-1976), an American visual artist who lived mainly in Paris, was one of the first exponents of Dada in New York in the 1910s. Dadaism’s eccentricity and irrationality gave way to Surrealism’s fantasy and incongruity not long after he arrived in Paris in 1921. Man Ray carved out a place for himself in the Surrealist group by his inventive use of the photographic medium, giving the movement a distinctive visual identity that was deeply rooted in literary and psychoanalytic philosophy. Classified as “the poet who writes with light”, he has “the head of a magic lantern”, according to André Breton – whose portrait, a solarised gelatin silver print, is featured in the forthcoming auction (estimate: €10,000-15,000).
Man Ray played with the photographic medium and photographed his muse Jacqueline Goddard many times. Some of these portraits are part of the Parisian sale such as an early 1930s work, Portrait of Jacqueline (estimate: €8,000-12,000) or a Portrait of Lee Miller, his former mistress, a solarised gelatin silver contact print, is also offered for sale with an estimate of €7,000-10,000.
Hannah Noel-Smith, Head of UK & Europe Impressionist & Modern Art, commented: “We are delighted to be offering this group of works from Jacqueline’s personal collection. Completely fresh to the market and previously unseen in public, the collection was gifted by Man Ray to Jacqueline over the course of many years in recognition of their long friendship and creative collaborations.”
Born to a French mother and an Italian father, Jacqueline Goddard, born Barsotti (1911-2003), arrived in Montparnasse at the age of 17. She frequented La Coupole and other Parisian venues of the fashionable artists. She became a close friend of Man Ray and his former mistress Kiki de Montparnasse and met artists such as Alberto Giacometti, Pablo Picasso, and Henri Matisse, and writers including Georges Simenon – who used Jacqueline as a character in one of his novels, (and whom she notably disliked). Jacqueline had a distinctively modern look, with a Grecian profile, long neck and cropped, tousled hair. As her beauty was legendary in Montparnasse, she became a favoured artist’s model in Paris during the 1920s and 1930s. Known as the ‘Muse of Muses’, she worked closely with Léonard Foujita, André Derain, Moïse Kisling, Picasso, Matisse, and Giacometti.
Jacqueline was one of the key female figures of the École de Paris and emerging Surrealist movement, enjoying mutually creative partnerships with the artists that she modelled for. One of Jacqueline’s most productive partnerships was with the American artist, Man Ray. They met at the end of the 1920s when Man Ray asked Jacqueline to star as the heroine of a short film he was producing. Jacqueline would go on to become one of his preferred subjects and is immortalised in many of his most famous photographs. In one instance, Jacqueline was the person who actually pressed the button of the camera for Man Ray’s iconic Suicide self-portrait of 1932. In a dedication to Jacqueline many years later, Man Ray wrote the following:
“To the most beautiful girl I have ever photographed.
Not true and not flattering to the others,
To the only one I did not sleep with.
Too compromising for the others who may have done so.
To the most inspiring one?
A compliment for me, but a perfect way of being rude to others.
You read this then, With all my love.” Man Ray
Man Ray could not be satisfied with a single career, he was a hybrid artist. “In whatever form it is finally presented, by a drawing, by a painting, by a photograph, or by the object itself in its original material and in its original dimensions, it is designed to amuse, bewilder, annoy or to inspire reflection, but not to arouse admiration for any technical excellence usually sought for in works of art” said Man Ray in 1944.
In addition to Man Ray’s photographs from the collection of Jacqueline Barsotti-Goddard, the La Révolution Surréaliste sale will showcase etchings, drawings, and paintings by Man Ray, such as La bonne route, an oil on canvas laid on Masonite painted in 1953 by the artist (estimate: €8,000-12,000). Other highlights include Pain peint, an exhibition catalogue from 1973 with an estimate of €2,500-3,500 and Les mains libres, first edition, limited to 650 copies, presentation copy inscribed by the artist from 1937 by Man Ray and Paul Eluard, with an estimate of €2,000-3,000.
