Les invendables

First edition, one of 500 copies of this catalogue for the exhibition Les invendables [The Unsellables], featuring 40 drawings and paintings at the Galerie Alphonse Chave.

Illustrated with 5 full-page black lithographs and 6 tipped-in colour plates.

In his characteristically provocative style, Man Ray opens with a preface mocking collectors' tendency to purchase names on canvas rather than the artworks themselves. Among the pieces selected for this book are several examples from his series of automatic paintings called "Peintures naturelles " (including the cover) created without the use of a brush. Among the other artworks one can find subtle allusions to famous painters: a Déjeuner sur l'herbe, a markedly Picassian Centaure, disjointed marionette figures (Antipolis) evoking the compositional language of de Chirico, and an Observatoire reminiscent of a Braque still life.