Facile. Poemes de Paul Éluard, Photographies de Man Ray. With Prospectus and 5 Original Photographs

Paris: Editions G. L. M. 79 Avenue de Segur. Type printed by Les Presses des Editions G. L. M. [Guy Lévis Mano, typographer (1904-1980)]; heliogravures printed by Les Presses de Breger, 1935. 4to. (9 1/2 x 7 inches). pp. 52. Foliated in pencil 1-18 including 5 original photographs. Number 388 out of 1000 copies on papier velin from a total edition of 1,225 copies: 25 on Japan of which 5 were hors commerce, and 200 on papier velin hors commerce numbered VI to CCV. Original book is illustrated with twelve black and white heliogravure photographs, one of which is a double-page, with four poems. Extra-illustrated with 5 original Man Ray photographs, including one which is solarized, printed from original negatives between 1967 and 1970. Various image sizes: (7 1/2 x 6 inches to 9 x 7 inches). Bound by Henri Mercher (1912-1976) who worked with many prominent artists including Joan Miró and Jacques Villon (Gaston Duchamp). Lettered in gold on doublure [MERCHER]. Mercher patented a binding process using Plexiglass, as here. Quarter-bound in black Morocco lettered direct. Plexiglass boards, preserving intact publisher's original glossy pictorial wrappers. Black endpapers at rear, at the bottom of which is [1970] in gold numerals

An extraordinary, embellished presentation copy, inscribed by Man Ray to his printer Serge Béguier near the beginning of their association, with 5 original Man Ray photographs of Paul and Nusch Éluard, printed by Béguier and in a binding by Henri Mercher, two of which are pencil signed, dated, and stamped on verso, and three of which are pencil signed, stamped on verso, and marked "E. A." (artist edition).

"This small book has come to be regarded as one of the iconic French photobooks of the 1930s." - Parr and Badger, The Photobook Besides Duchamp, the poet Paul Éluard, a signatory to the Surrealist manifesto, was Man Ray's closest friend between the Wars. Man Ray and Éluard were frequent collaborators and together produced the 1935 photobook Facile, which features Éluard's poetry accompanied by Man Ray's composite photographs of Nusch Éluard (b. Maria Benz, 1906-1946). This copy of Facile is signed and inscribed by Man Ray to the printer of his photographs [à Serge Béguier bien amicalement! - Man Ray] in ink on the half-title. Serge Béguier (1934-1991) printed photographs for Man Ray in the late 1960s and 70s. Béguier was an artist in his own right, who worked often with the French poet Henri Chopin, with whom he made the short film L'Energie du sommeil. While little is known about Man Ray's early printers, it is documented that Man Ray exclusively worked with Pierre Gassmann (1913-2004) upon his return to Paris in 1951 until they had a falling out in the late-1960s. It is then that Man Ray found Serge Béguier at the PhotoBac Lab. One distinction between the two printers is that Gassmann used Ilford paper, while Béguier used Agfa paper. Béguier is perhaps better known today for the actions of his ex-wife, Hélène Béguier, who after Serge's death in 1991 began to sell fraudulent, unauthorized Man Ray prints using negatives she obtained from Béguier's studio. Further embellishments to this copy of Facile include prints of three nude photos of Nusch, two of which were reproduced as heliogravures in Facile, as well as prints of two other photos taken later, in 1939, when Man Ray visited Paul Éluard in Miguères, a village in France where Éluard had been stationed by the French Army. One of the 1939 photos, Man Ray and Paul Éluard, shows Man Ray with Éluard in army uniform, while the other, Paul et Nusch Éluard, is a photo of both Éluards gazing lovingly at one another. Each photo is signed and dated "1939" by Man Ray in pencil. They are both stamped "Man Ray Paris" on their backs. The three prints of photos taken for Facile are sensual black and white nude portraits of Éluard's wife, the muse of the Surrealists, Nusch Éluard, of whom Picasso painted a portrait. These three photos, referred to as Nude: Nusch Éluard, Nusch Nue, and Nusch Éluard in Silhouette, are signed and marked "E. A." (artist edition) by Man Ray in pencil and stamped on their versos, but are not dated. Nude: Nusch Eluard is solarized, and though the photo was taken for Facile, it was not included. The photographs themselves were likely printed from 1967 to 1970 and then signed and two were backdated to the date of the negatives by Man Ray, as was usual for him. The photos would have been printed by Béguier, to whom the book is inscribed. Man Ray's 12 heliogravures in Facile are accompanied by Éluard's poems, the titles of which are "Tu te leves l'eau se déplie"; l'Entente"; A la fin de l'année, de jour en jour plus bas, il enfouit sa chaleur comme une graine"; and "Facile et bien." The poems are love poems written for Nusch, Man Ray's model, who Éluard had married the year previous to publication. The two French Communists were to be deeply involved in the French Resistance, with Nusch dying tragically in 1946. The binding by the French book artist Henri Mercher was then state of the art: Mercher was a pioneer in using Plexiglass for bindings and held a patent for his innovation. Mercher was well known in modernist circles, and worked with many of the principal artists of the time. The binding of this copy of Facile is dated "1970," and with Mercher's death in 1976, it gives us a terminal date for this collection. Facile is a canonical photobook, one of the most beautiful of the twentieth century. It is elegantly designed and integrates "Man Ray's solarized, superimposed, double-exposed and negative images into the page spreads in a way that makes image and text appear to intimately embrace." The images of Nusch are "solarized nudes that drift across the pages as if in a dream" but are still "appropriately simple, either done in high key tones or mysteriously dark and backlit" (Parr & Badger). "From cover to cover the book points to a single universe expressed by two different languages. The poem is made up of images, and the images coalesce into a poem. The directness of the poet's voice makes the woman presence intensified by but hardly originating in the photographs. This immediacy in no way weakens the dream quality so pronounced in this collaborative work" (Hubert). Accompanied by the original four-page prospectus printed in black in 1935 for Editions G. L. M.

Andel, Avant-Garde Page Design, 339. Caron, De Goya a Max Ernst, 290-297. De L'Ecotais, Man Ray: Photography and Its Double. Getty, In Focus, Man Ray: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum. Hubert, Surrealism and the Book, 73-83. Krauss and Livingston, L'Amour Fou: Photography and Surrealism. Mélusine, 163-77. Naudet, "The Man Ray Affair," American Photo, July-Aug 1998, 48-52; 92-95. Parr & Badger, The Photobook: A History, Vol. 1, 104-05. Picaud, Des livres rares depuis l'invention de l'imprimerie, 1941. Roth, 101 Books, 86-87. Schwarz, Man Ray: The Rigour of Imagination. Sinibaldi and Courtier, Regards sur un siècle de photographie à travers le livre, 48. Skira, Man Ray. Album Eluard, 173. The Open Book, 118-9. Perpetual Motif: The Art of Man Ray, 221.