Eluard,Paul and Man Ray

Les Mains Libres

Paris: Jeanne Bucher, 1937. 4to.; illustrated with 67 monochrome plates; printed wrappers.

$7500

First edition. One of 675 copies, this is number 482. Title page: To Stanly (sic) Hayter, homage from Man Ray. This copy was inscribed by Man Ray to his friend, fellow Surrealist and occasional artistic collaborator Stanley William Hayter. It is an extraordinary association copy that evokes the tumultuous Parisian art world of the 1930s. Though nominally Surrealists at the time of publication, both Hayter and Man Ray soon found themselves embroiled in Surrealism’s internecine politics after Andre Breton expelled Paul Eluard from the movement in 1938. Subsequently Hayter abandoned the group as a show of solidarity, while Man Ray found himself in the awkward position of having recently collaborated on books with both of the antagonists. Man Ray published a book of photographs with text by Andres Breton, La Photographie n’est pas l’art, which also came out in 1937.
Les Mains Libre consists of Paul Eluard’s poetry accompanied by Man Ray’s drawings. Typically, Man Ray’s drawings vary in style from image to image and bear little direct relation to the content of the poem they accompany. Instead word and image combine as a Surrealistic montage designed to allow underlying meanings and associations to emerge.  Following page 176 Man Ray has added several portraits including drawings of Andre Breton, Picasso, and Eluard himself.

Hayter was an English printmaker who moved to Paris in 1926 and began working in a Surrealistic vein upon meeting Yves Tanguy and Andre Masson in 1929. The print studio he founded, Atelier 17, was a center of Surrealist activity throughout the 30s. Atelier 17, through both Hayter’s technical innovations (he developed a simultaneous color printing process called viscosity printing) and his wide ranging contacts in the Parisian art world (in addition to Man Ray and the Surrealists he worked with Miro, Giacometti, Chagall, and others) has become known as one of the 20th Century’s most significant printmaking studios.