(Philadelphia 1880–1976 Paris) “Ohne Titel” (Liegender Akt), signed, dated Man Ray 1963, oil on cardboard, 37.5 x 46 cm, framed, (K)

Provenance:
Galerie Octan, Paris, rue du Marché-Saint-Honoré (label verso)
Galerie Levy, Hamburg, Magdalenenstrasse 54 (label) and adhesive label for Les Gardres R. G. 7. rue Bonaparte-Danton 41–47
Private Collection, Vienna

The Man Ray of his last few years in Paris was a new man. He was, however, still intransigent and no less restless than in his youth, because he always appeared to retain the link in his objects and painting to a distant time in his past. He said, “La matière est vivante – matter lives” and he proved this in his late works, in which the spirit of matter predominates, as it had in his earlier photographs.
Man Ray died on 18 November 1976 in Paris, but these facts – the name of the city and his death date – would be meaningless, were one not also to at least mention that his real name was Emmanuel Rudnitzky; that he indirectly, through his parents, originated in a distant region of Eastern Europe, and that in his soul always remained something of the Jew wandering throughout the world and the realms of dreams. ...
Man Ray, Edizioni Gabriele Mazotta, Milano 1998