IJ nder the S unfacv:
SURREALIST PHOTOGRAPHY
BOWDOIN COLLEGE MISEIM OF ART
BRUNSWICK, MAINE
11
If
FOREWORD
Under
the Surface: SurrealLit
Photography investigates the interest of a diverse group of early
twentieth-century modernists in using photography to see beyond the visible and the knowable.
These
artists' desire to
depths of the
was
human
psyche.
delve "under the surface" represented an attempt to probe hidden
Working with photography,
medium
a
that tor
much
of
its
history
associated with and supposedly limited to capturing the world before us, they wished to
get
beyond external
the
human
realities to
eye. Their search
that transformed the
First
explore dreams and other subterranean worlds not visible to
brought forth new technical practices and creative approaches
meaning and power of photography.
espoused by a group of writers led by Andre Breton
in the early 1920s, surre-
alism has proved to be one of the most resonant and long-lasting strains of thought in
ernist art
and
literature. Its legacy
continues to inform
many
artists
mod-
and writers today. This
exhibition brings together outstanding examples from the movement's inception to the 1960s
by leading
ists'
surrealist
photographers living
in
Europe and the Americas. Through these
work, one encounters vast new worlds awaiting discovery, contemplation, and
Their experiments demonstrate the increasing significance of photography
in
art-
critique.
avant-garde
expression.
Under the Surface:
torial assistant at the
Photography
SiirrealLit
was organized by Andrea Rosen. As
a cura-
Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Rosen has been an important part
of
the institution's curatorial team. In addition, she has been invaluable in connecting students
with the Museum's exhibitions, collections, and public programs.
staff also
Martina Duncan
'97,
In helping to
Thank you,
Academy; Bruce
&
of the
Archives,
realize
exhibition,
this
in particular, to the
Silverstein Gallery;
Bowdoin College
Gallery; Philadelphia
many
organizations provided important
Addison Gallery of American Art,
George
J. Mitchell
High Museum of
Library;
Phillips
Art; International Center for
Museum
of Art; Picker Art Gallery, Colgate University; Rauner Rare
New
College;
Rose Gallery, Santa Monica; Smith College
Hampshire
Institute of Art;
Yale University Art Gallery. In addition,
we
Ubu
Gallery;
Weyhe
Vaughan Conrad Fund,
the Stevens L. Frost
H.
GOODYEAR
Co-Director
Crete Stern, German. 1904-1999, Dream 28. 1951 (detail), gelatin
Stern, courtesy of Nailya Alexander Gallery, NY.
© Crete
of
and the
appreciate greatly the financial support of the
Elizabeth B. G. Hamlin Fund.
FRANK
Museum
Gallery;
Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, the Becker Fund for the Bowdoin College
Art, the Louisa
Andover
Department of Special Collections
Gallery; Minneapolis Institute of Arts; Nailya Alexander
Book Room, Dartmouth
Art; Teti Library,
'76.
Lellis
Photography; Keith de
1.
Museum's
Anne Goodyear, Michelle Henning, Jo Hluska, Joachim Homann,
Laura Latman, Sarah Montross, and Jose Ribas
loans.
Members
played an important role in supporting this exhibition, including Suzanne Bergeron,
silver print.
III
Museum
Endowment Fund, and
of
the
2.
George
Piatt Lynes.
gelatin silver print.
4
American, 1907-1955, Portrait of Thomas Bacon, ca. 1938,
Purchase, 1989.69. © Estate of George Piatt Lynes.
Museum
COIVCEAL
AND
REVEAL
LAYERING TECHNIQUES IN
SURREALIST PHOTOGRAPHY
The
artistic
and
movement known
literary
aimed
as surrealism
modern
to liberate the
mind by demonstrating how deep psychological impulses could be explored, depicted,
and Fused with everyday
reality.
Primarily based in Paris
witnessed the horrors of World
alists
War
I,
in
the 1920s and 1930s, surre-
a global economic depression, the evils ol
imperialism and colonialism, and the build-up to a second World
War
followed by exile
From their home country. They believed society to be painFully dysFunctional, necessitating not just a political revolution, but a revolution oF thought. Inspired
choanalytic theories oF
Sigmund Freud, they sought
the release oF unconscious desires
by the psythrough
to achieve that revolution
and a loosenmg oF rationality and
control. In order to
shock, disrupt, and eventually abolish bourgeois values, they published texts and images
that
were dreamlike, disturbing, unexpected, and inexplicable.
As
and a leader oF the
a writer
surrealist
movement, Andre Breton
upon which
the visual arts in his cause: "In order to respond to the necessity,
minds now agree.
For a total revision ol real values, the plastic
to a purely internal /nuA'l or will cease to exist."' In other
the capacity oF painting
impulse. Fantasy, and
abstraction.
It
and drawing
work oFart
artists,
might seem to Follow that the mechanism oF photography, which entails
would preclude
medium. Yet photography was a source oF Fascination
Photography
in Fact
in surrealist
proved an
books and
it
to
many
its
all
the
many ways.
more power
'
Indeed,
to
shock
conFronting them with the Fantastical. Surrealist photographers like
Ray, Maurice Tabard, and
could pry the camera
use
surrealist
journals.-
ideal tool For surrealism in
photography's presumption oF a depiction oF reality gave
when
oFthe unconscious —
dream — oFten through impossible juxtapositions or processes oF
and was Featured prominently
viewers
serious
will either reler
words, surrealism called upon
to visually depict the contents
the creation oF Indexical representations oF the physical world,
as a surrealist
enlisted
all
Man
Dora Maar discovered and perFected methods by which they
away From mere
depiction oF the external world, thereby tapping
the unconscious while using photography 's illusionism to create a convincing dream-like
reality.''
Many
oF these methods involved unprecedented technical manipulations oF the
medium, such as photograms,
and
solarization, multiple exposures,
hrulage, or
burning
oF the negative. Such manipulations Fulfilled another surrealist purpose: namely, the
interest in
automatism —techniques employing chance, accident, and Free association to
liberate creation
From the interFerence oF conscious thought. Surrealist photographers'
experiments with the medium caused the usually predictable results oFthe photographic
process to become haphazard, mysterious, and accidental.
Yet not
all
surrealist
photographs have been technically manipulated.
Many
photographers associated with surrealism, including Brassai, Andre Kertesz, and Henri
Cartier-Bresson, took straightForward photographs, particularly oF the streets oF Paris.
Such
street scenes are oFten characterized
by an aesthetic oF
chance capturing on film oF some marvelous coincidence.
eerie emptiness, or the
How
do we reconcile these
two modes — technically manipulated photography and straightForward photography —
into
our conception oF what distinguishes a surrealist photograph? Scholar David Bate
characterizes surreal images as any in which "the message appears 'enigmatic' regardless
oF
how
(or in
what technological Form)
which are posed with a
specific
answer
it
in
has been produced.
"
As opposed
to riddles,
mind, "the author oFan enigmatic message
is
not Fully aware oF the signification involved." Bate proposes that surrealist images are
distinguished by such enigmatic messages, in which meaning
to the creators.^
is
partially hidden,
even
How
ist
then does one define
photograph\
?
A\eml)ership
who
merits inclusion
an exhibition oF surreal-
in
group was a diffuse and ever-changing
in the surrealist
concept. To restrict an exhibition only to official "members" would exclude the important coninhuii(.)iis of
many who
tion brings together the
Americas, some of
whom
Bellmer, Claude Cahun,
did not consider themselves surrealists. This exhibi-
work of
were
various photographers
who
Europe and the
lived in
with the surrealist movement (Hans
officially affiliated
Dora Maar, Rene Magritte, Man Ray, Roger
Parry,
Maurice
Tabard), while others engaged with surrealist premises and techniques on the periphery
of the
movement or from
Some
afar.
f930s at formative moments
intersected with surrealism in Paris in the 1920s and
in their
careers (Berenice Abbott, Erwin Blumenfeld,
Bill
Brandt, Brassai, Henri Cartier- Bresson, Andre Kertesz, George Piatt Lynes). Others
utilized surrealist
methods and themes from remote locations (Manuel Alvarez Bravo,
Juan Crisostomo Mendez
Avalos, Clarence
Stern, Jindf ich Styrsky). In
all
John
Laughlin, Frederick Sommer, Crete
whether
cases, their experiments with photography,
technical or straightforward, contain enigmatic, psychologically charged meanings that
can only be guessed
at,
never certainly defined.
The unusual compositional
manipulated
in
the
darkroom or
ing slowly and peeling
away
strategies
not, require the
layers.
George
1938
of
surrealist
photographs, whether
viewer to embark on a process of look-
Piatt Lynes's Portrait of Thonuui Bacon, ca.
(fig. 2), is
an excellent example." The subject
of the photograph appears only in the lower third
of the image, counterbalanced in the top third by
N-
II
—
guatrieme annee
15
.n«rs 1928
what appears
to be a tear in the wallpaper of the
room, revealing a dark triangle
LA REVOLUTION
SURREALISTE
In
behind
it.
between these two poles are intriguing and
at
indecipherable marks. Are they the product
first
of
of wall
some kind of technical manipulation?
A
double
exposure perhaps, or even some kind of scratch on
the negative?
them
A
to be the
closer look at their shape reveals
marks
of the heel of a boot.
not wallpaper behind Bacon.
It is
a large piece of
It is
paper, probably a studio photographer's backdrop,
that
had once
dn S*yfc
NjKli.
;
:
.
Man
Mo,,,*
LE Di;>iOOUE
was
repeat-
The paper forms an opaque
and behind
it is
of a
in front
another space, one inacces-
but hinted at by the
tear.
Lynes's portrait testifies to the tendency of
Aragon.
cn 192S
And:; Brtlon
LO««l<< lOJiw
it
wall for this portrait.
sible
bintnin da Tempi
on the floor where
was then hung
screen,
TnM
lain
edly stepped on, and
surrealist
photographers to build up,
literally
and
A„;„n.™ A,ij„d
metaphorically, a series of layers that the viewer
is
compelled to peel away. The
to generate visual enigmas,
surrealists'
wish
images that provoke
questions with no answers, often involves alluding
to a space or object that
3.
French, cover of La
Anonymous photographer. Rauner
i
6
we cannot
Revolution Surrealiste. no.
Dartmouth College. Hanover. NH.
see because
11,
March
15.
1928.
Special Collections Library,
it is
hidden, covered, screened, or veiled.'
question, completely
realist
canon
is
open
What cannot
be seen provokes an unanswerable
A prominent example in the surLA PROCHAINE
to the viewer's imagination.
an uncredited photograph, enigmatically captioned
CHAMBRE ["the next room"], that appeared in 1928 on the cover of the surrealist journal
La
Revolution Sarre'aluite (fig. 3).
Two men
peer
down an open manhole, making the
men in the photograph,
viewer wonder what has drawn their attention. Yet unlike the
way
the viewer has no
to sate her curiosity.
a point of fascination in a photograph that
Another example of a
cannot see
barrier
side.
He
looks as
it?
The
he
fears,
that
Would
or
is
we cannot
all,
no matter
at a severe
how
it.
Just as intriguing as what cannot be seen
is
VeiL'() (fig. 5).'"
Yet such a
veil,
( Self-Portrait )
1935
(fig. 6),
view
his
work
is
needn't be a physical layer. In
by drawing with a penlight
what
ol
titled
Man
own
is
mushn
is
trans-
behind
it.
sheets" in
The Nakei^
anc) the
Ray's Space Writing
in front of the
the camera, the artist created a layer of light, obscuring his
open shutter of
blurred self-portrait.
appears masked by a luminous, cartoonish doodle of himself, which,
own
If
that
partially seen.
or cloth that
"veils, grids, glass plates, silks,
nude that a book on
veil
behmd
banal the scene behind
what can only be
lucent, semi-transparent, or lull of holes, allowing a partial
his exploration of the female
is
'
photographs make use of a screen,
Erwin Blumenfeld so frequently used
being watched.
what
and here the photographer and the viewer
men withm
mirror, reveals his
cloth
and an accompanying
see provokes the urge to look
this screen stir these leelings
surrealist
is
the lookout for the other man, then
interdiction triggers curiosity in us
,
which a rough-spun
(fig. 4), in
through the space ot the photograph
of the photograph are as complicit as the
Thus many
we
photograph providing intrigue through what
or knows, that even while watching he
in the act,
Something
sense of guilt.
— provides
has found a gap to peek through, but the other furtively gazes to one
if
he has been caught
barrier?
vertical polls cuts
One man
black hole
literal
othei'wise unremarkable.*^
fienri Cartler- Bresson's Brii.veLi, 1932
is
hung from
diagonal.
surrealist
An absence— a
is
when viewed
He
in
a
scribbled signature." These veils that simultaneously conceal and
reveal invite the viewer to pass through the layers ol the photograph: to imagine that they
can reach
4.
in
and
lift
the
veil,
and
to extrapolate
what they might
Henri Cartier-Bresson, French, 1908-2004, Brussels, 1932, gelatin silver print.
International
Center of Photography, Gift of Henri Cartier-Bresson,
in
memory
of
Robert Capa and David Seymour, 1994. © Henri Cartier-Bresson/Magnum Photos.
see
if
they could do
so.
Left: 5.
Erwin Blumenfeld, American, 1897-1969,
Nude
Waving Behind Perforated Screen, ca. 1955-1957, gelatin
Courtesy of Bruce Silverstein Gallery, NY.
Sliver print.
Right:
6.
Man Ray American,
1890-1976, Space Writing
(Self-Portrait). 1935, gelatin silver print.
Museum
Purchase, Lloyd O. and Marjorie Strong Coulter Fund,
1987.15.
(ARS),
The word
"veil,
acting as a
"
® 2014 Man Ray Trust
NY / ADAGP, Paris.
to protect
and while the
many — bridal
modesty,
veils
/pija/>,
they
are as
may
much
and widow's
not. In
an
defined by what they
artistic context, veiling
Most
articles of clothing
transparency. Even veils that are opaque, like those
in
veils
"
known
— tease
with some degree of
eyes,
and Reveals.
title
women
has often been used to describe painting, as
Tanguy
Breton's
Islamic
hands — as by what
Andre Breton's dreamlike meditation on Yves Tanguy's
"
as veils purport
worn by nuns or
may show — faces,
to
definitions of "veil
in the title ot
Veils
Rights Society
noun or a verb, seems an appropriate way
describe this category oi covering that doesn't fully obscure.
refer to covering or hiding,
/ Artists
implies that to veil
paintings,
"What
and reveal are not mutually
exclusive, that in fact one cannot exist without the other. In her important study of the
relationships of surrealism to abstract expressionism, SiirrcalLuu in Exile
of the
New
York Sehool, art historian Martica
<i/i()
the Btyiimimj
Sawin explored how painters who bridged
two movements — Roberto Matta, Arshile Gorky, Mark Rothko,
the gap between the
Gordon Onslow Ford— "veiled
the abstracted beings
who
"
their subject matter
through abstraction, and referred to
populated their canvases and their invented mythologies as
"transparents."'-
Along with
egorizes a great
its
many
use as a term to describe surrealist painting, veiling aptly catlayering techniques used by surrealist photographers. In addi-
tion to representations of literal layering
— the placing of some barrier,
translucent, or transparent, behind the subject or
8
whether opaque,
between the subject and the viewer —
layering appears in surrealist photographs in a non-literal way, often through technical
manipulations. Such layering can even be metaphorical, as in the ways enigmatic meanings get layered onto seemingly straightforward photographs
ist
context.'^
the myriad
The
The
ways
in
a surreal-
that layering operates within surrealist photographs.
exhibition focuses on five themes: portraiture,
scenes,
when viewed
exhibition UiiAt the Surface: SiirrealLit Photography seeks to demonstrate
and dream scenes. While the
work, these groupmgs
sei"ve to
demonstrate
experimented with traditional torms
still life,
depictions of the body, street
surrealists resisted such categorization of their
how
surrealist
photographers radically
ol representation, simultaneously referencing
and
departing Irom typical art historical genres. In the hands of the surrealists, portraiture
did not aim to capture a likeness so
the
self. Still lite
was not
just
abstraction. Depictions of the
when
much
as question the notion of the coherence ot
an aesthetic arrangement ot objects but an approach to
body enacted the complexities of human
violent or distorted. Scenes of everyday
life
and marvelous. The uncanny associations
in
upending the notion
"realist"
gories, surrealist
ol
photography as a
photographers employed
on
city streets
sexuality,
even
became both
eerie
dreams took form through photomontage,
many
medium.
different
In every
ways
one of these cate-
to build
up
layers, to
generate enigmas, to provoke, captivate, and engage the viewer in the image's
unanswerable questions.
many
OnTKAIT
I*
DRE
Perhaps the most direct way a darkroom manipulation becomes a form
practice of muhiple exposure, in
of layering
is
the
which two or more images can be viewed simultane-
ously in one photograph, either by exposing the negative multiple times or by printing
multiple negatives together.
Born
19-i6 (fig. 7).
dry climate
painters
in Italy
A
to soothe his tuberculosis.
Max
threw the negative
in a
in front
Sommer happened
to pick
up
one
the textured
background
7.
in
ways
eventually settled in Arizona's
his wife
became
who had moved
of the painter's weathered
it.
It
close with surrealist
there in 1946. Dissatisfied
wood
remained there
cabin,
until,
Ernst, 1946. gelatin silver print.
Purchase. Gridley W. Tarbell
II
Museum
Fund, 19974.
© Frederick & Frances Sommer Foundation.
image of a
that negative with another failure, an
The serendipitous combination of
that recall
some of his techniques
Sommer
cleaning one
two became
the
is
fused with
for creating surreal-
images, such as collage and frottage (a rubbing over a textured surface).
Frederick Sommer, American, 1905-1999,
Max
Frederick Sommer's MtiA' Erimt,
Sommer's best known images. Ernst emerges from and
this portrait,
of
is
Sommer
There he and
corner and forgot about
stained and corroded concrete wall.
ist
in Brazil,
Ernst and Dorothea Tanning,
with a portrait he took of Ernst
day,
well-known example
and raised
"
STILL LIFE
The gauzy
fabric in
Man
Ray's Untitled, 1921
(fig. 8),
recalls the veils
used by Cartier-
Bresson and Blumenfeld, but without a subject to conceal/reveal. As a photograph of
barely recognizable objects with no
even as
artists
it
defies
all
human
presence, one might term this a
"still life,
expectations of the genre. This image represents a technique
could turn the indexical
medium
whereby
of photography into a vehicle lor abstraction.
Photograms are camera-less images produced by placing objects onto photographic
paper and exposing them to
were explored by other
light.
They have
artists at the
existed since photography's beginnings,
same time
as
Man Ray
and
claimed to have discovered
the technique by accident. Nonetheless, he asserted a kind of authorship over the idea
dubbing
the
first
titled
his
experiments "rayographs." The rayograph
he produced, and
Chainpj
Dclicieiux,
"the magnetic fields,
Soupault two years
"
is
one
The
title recalls Z/f.'
a set of automatic writings published
earlier,
Man
Ray,
silver print.
Museum
1921, gelatin
Purchase, Lloyd O. and Marjorie
1988.17.
Artists Rights Society (ARS),
© 2014 Man Ray Trust
NY / ADAGP, Paris.
/
is
by
among
1922 portfolio
Chainp,i AlacjiietuituM, or
by Andre Breton and Philippe
thereby drawing an analogy between
American, 1890-1976, Untitled.
Strong Coulter Fund,
Bowdoin's collection
ol twelve he copied lor a limited edition
or "delicious fields."
minded discovery of the photogram technique and
8.
in
Man
surrealist automatism.'"'
Ray's absent-
B 41 niKS
The
eroticism
oi'
partially covering a
reahst photographers
nude body
just
is
employed when depicting nudes.
one
many
ol'
Artists
female nude an inexhaustible topic, but even more so the surrealists,
and
free expression of sexuality as
bourgeois values.
ing, or violent.
Some
These
one of the primary weapons
surrealist depictions oi
artists
fore most effective expression of rebellion
example, found lifelong motivation
Fascist governments.
As
as the
contempt
a frank
sadistic, disturb-
most extreme and there-
and freedom. German
in his
who viewed
in their arsenal against
women's bodies can be
saw such representations
techniques sur-
have alwaj/s Found the
artist
Flans Bellmer, for
for an authoritarian father
and
and photographed them
suggestive poses, a liberation from repression
incorrect "dolls
"
and
Bellmer also employed a layering technique as old as photography
restraint.'"
for
Hitler rose to power, Bellmer created disjointed, anatomically
in
itself,
applying hand-coloring to his black-and-white prints. Though nineteenth-century pho-
make
their
images more
to further distance his creations
from
reality.
tographers used hand-coloring to
effect
is
lifelike,' in
Bellmer's case the
STREET SCEI^ES
Eugene Atget was a key photographic predecessor
urban
life.
Two
obsessively documenting
ily
the
as
documents
same
to
Old
Paris, taking
photographers of
thousands of photographs meant primar-
be sold to historical institutions. In the 1920s
street as the aging Atget,
Man Ray
lived
on
and elevated him from obscurity by selecting four
of his photographs to be published in La
12
for surrealist
generations older than the surrealists, Atget spent his thirty-year career
Revoliilioii
Surmi/wti'.
Famously likened by
what cannot be deen proi^oked an
unanswerable questionj completely
open to the
v Leader d
imagination.
Walter Benjamin to images oF crime scenes, Atget's photographs depict abandoned
parks and alleyways, and shop windows populated by mannequins."'
streets, isolated
His work inspired
Ian
Walker has
many photographers
called
it,
understated directness that
cal
(surrealists
"an 'Atgetian' aesthetic
it
comes
to
and others)
— the
to adopt, as scholar
everyday recorded with such
seem haunting."'' Compared
to the techni-
manipulations and bizarre juxtapositions ot other surrealist photographs,
many
of these urban landscapes appear plain by comparison. Yet the ability of such images
to
seem
at
once familiar and strange
elicits
a sense of the uncanny, thereby layering
surrealist significance onto otherwise straightfoi-ward depictions ot the city."*
DREAM SCENES
Surrealists
were not the only ones interested
in
Freud's revolutionary theory that
dreams could be interpreted as disguised expressions of
in
1948,
a
IcHlio,
weekly women's magazine
"Psychoanalysis Will Help You,
"
for
in
a
to be analyzed.
illustration oi the
dream created
in their
Cerman-born photographer and graphic designer who had
cated to Buenos Aires. In Dream 28, alternatively titled Love Without
well-dressed, middle-class
woman
recoils
titled
dreams
which readers sent
Each column was accompanied by a photomontage
by Crete Stern,
internal conflicts. Starting
Argentina, ran a column
Illiunoii (fig.
reloI
),
a
trom — or perhaps surveys cautiously — a
masculine figure with a tortoise's head, pointed mouth wide open and ready to snap.
Is this
an unwelcome assault?
long-term relationship,
of your partner
is
in
Or
which
perhaps, as the
illusion falls
suggests, just the effect of a
title
away and
the monstrous, ravenous side
revealed? Stern 's images wittily capture
how the conflicting demands
of domesticity, femininity, and sexuality can infect a woman's psyche.
Comte
Pioto-suriealist writer
Lautreamont described as early as 1868 the
tie
surrealist
idea of beauty as "the chance meeting on a dissecting-table oF a sewing machine and
an umbrella."''' Andre Breton elaborated on
1924
this idea in the
surrealist
first
mani-
explaining that such a disjunction creates a "spark," one that cannot exist between
lesto,
objects that are too similar, nor too clearly opposite from each other.-" These juxtaposed
elements can be placed side-by-side, as
dream — or
in a
Stern. But they can also, as in the photographs of
and others, be placed one on top of the
two or more
juxtaposition of
dream photomontage by Grete
a
Man
Sommer,
Ray, Bellmer, Atget,
other, generating the beautiful spark
layers. This
through the
spark captivates the viewer, engaging them in
an exploration that takes them under the surface of the photograph, where they must
through the
veils that conceal
and reveal the mysteries of the
sift
surrealist image.
ANDREA ROSEN
Curatorial A^i.iuitaiit
Notes
1
Andre Breton. Siinviiliim ijm^ Paintiiuj, trans. Simon
Watson Taylor (New ^'orU: Harper & Row, 1972), 4.
by sticking the camera's lens through a narrow gap
(New
Italics in the original.
2
See
Dawn
Ades, "Photography and the Surrealist
Text," in L'Amour
Pholikjmphx/
ftui:
c-''
reaht\'
Its
is
photography adheres slavishly
tact that
guarantee ot
in lact a
strangeness, and the mechanical, automatic
ner
m
which
operates makes
it
tool." Christian
A
Mia Fineman,
Btfore
10
It:
1
1
(New
York: Metropolitan
(London:
D,,,.,c-nl
Museum
1
2
identity remains
13
I.E. Tauris,
unknown. One
Houghton
Martica Sawin. Sitrreatimi
ing and backdrop,
From
Piatt
modified Januaiy
1
1,
photographs that
Therese Lichtenstein,
16
Walter Bon|amin,
For
Rodney
(
Manchester
University Press, 2(K)2). T^-.S!
1
7
18
that Cartier-Bresson took with a Leica, a small
have allowed the photographer
Walker, City
in
et al., trans.
1927-19H (Cambridge,
Press of Harvard Universitv' Press, 2003),
19
,;orye,l
I'neaimy. trans.
David McLintock
York: Penguin Classics, 2003).
Comte de Lautreamont.
Alexis Lykiard
to
«;th I'reonio, 88.
Sigmund Freud, The
(New
This photograph was one ot the earliest pictures
that could
vol. 2,
527.
tuuhhwiinwiitani
A\.iru licster:
al.,
1-4.
Photography, "
Michael W. Jennings
[>i\'ingstone et
MA: Belknap
Phol,H,raphy,in,)Sunv„lum,. 33-.34, and Ian Walker,
Clw<) Door.K The Art of Hono
"Little History of
Bate, PhMof]r,iph\i ,im) Sumalu'in. 26-27.
image, see Bate,
Behin,)
University of California, 2001),
Be-//™-/- (Ik-rkeley:
2013, http://oasis.lib. harvard.
Siinruli.'iii
Press,
1998), 188.
8
ihranu:
Reading
for sources.
15
7
n'ith
the\'
of the literature on surrealist
this effect: see "Selected
Emmanuelle de L'Ecotais and Alain Sayag, Jlon Rtiy:
Photography on,! //., Donhle, trans. Deke Dusinberre and
Seleetetl W'rittnyo, ed.
phot,H,raphy in mtennir
tound photo-
Donna Wiemann (Corte Medera, CA: Gingko
last
edu/oasis/deliver/~hou01715.
lurllier anaK'sis ol this
Beijinniih] of the
Press, 1995).
14
Lynes photographs,
1935-1953: Guide." Harvard University Library,
camera
MA: MIT
on Surrealism and Photography"
the subject's cloth-
clear that the Houghton's
it is
"George
Much
have before.
photography discusses
photograph was taken during the same session
as Bowdoin's.
9
am^ the
Exile
In addition to the straightforward
didn't
described as "Photographs ol tashion models and
Ctty yi'n/t'if
in
thereby layering them with surrealist meanings
Library', in a collection
Ballet dancers."
204 (Fall
graphs, incorporating them into their publications and
is
Theatre Collection
to the author, in the
of Harvard's
American
Man Ray " .4/>iv/'///v
212,215-217, 299, 328-329, 407.
Sexuality,
other portrait photograph ol Bacon by Lynes
known
See Ellen Carey,
light writing in 2009.
surrealists took, they often appropriated
Thomas Bacon's
The
(London: Thames
2011): 77.
2004), 22.
6
the VeileJ:
Photographer Ellen Carey discovered the signature
hidden within the
Ne;' York Sehool (Cambridge,
.C'Lmuili.m, ,m,l S,.cm/
Clement
Hudson. 1999).
"Backstoiy: At Play with
2008). n.p.
MampitlalcWbutitfjiaphy
David Bate. Photoqraphy il/u> Sltrrealumi:
Art, 1987), 30.
Yorick Blumenfeld. The NakeJam)
&
of Art. 2012), 159.
5
Modern
Pli,'t,yn,phie Niuk.: „fF.nein Blumenfelit
man-
ideal Surrealist
Thames & Hudson.
Fakiitq
Phohvhop
an
it
to
Bouqueret, SunralLit Phottujrnphy,
Photofile (Lxjndon:
of
Thames & Hudson, 2008), 90.
Henri Cartier-Bresson, The Deeitive Moment (New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1952), n.p.
independence and
its
Museum
Discoveries (London:
D.C.: Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1985), 155-189.
"The very
York:
Cherou.x, Henri Cartter-Bre.uHm. trans. David H. Wilson,
jiima/l.i/li. eds.,
Rosalind Krauss and Jane I.ivingston (Washington,
3
in a
fence. Peter Galassi, Henri Cartier-Bre,\ion: The pAiriy ^'ork
(New
Laiitreaniont 'o .llolJoror. trans.
York:
Thomas
Y. Crowell, 1972),
quickly snap the scene undetected by his subjects,
reinforcing his role as voyeur Similarly, the voy-
20
Andre Breton.
'
.\\anifesto of Surrealism (1924)," in
Alanife.itoeo of Siirreolioin. trans.
ot
another tainous photograph by Cartier-Bresson,
RMn.tCair Sl.-Lazan:
Pan... 1932,
which he took
Richard Seaver and
Helen R. Lane (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press. 1972), 20, 37.
ARTISTS
THE EXHIBITIOM
IM
Berenice Abbott, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Eugene Atget, Juan Cnsostomo
Avalos, Herbert Bayer,
Hans
Bellmer,
Erwin Blumenfeld,
Bill
Mendez
Brandt, Brassai, Claude
Cahun, Henri Cartier- Bresson, David Hare, Andre Kertesz, Clarence John Laughlin,
George
Piatt Lynes,
Dora Maar, Rene Magritte, Man Ray, Lee
Aaron Siskind, Frederick Sommer, Crete
Miller,
Stern, Jindf ich Styrsky,
Roger Parry,
Maurice Tabard,
and Umbo.
SELECTED READII^G OM
SURREALISM AI^D PHOTOGRAPHY
Bate, David. Photiyrapl.n/ aiiJ Siinraluni:
I.B. Tauris,
Scwiialit}/, Coloiiialumi aiu^
Social DLuent.
London:
2004.
Bouqueret, Christian.
Phohnjraphy
SiirrealLit
.
Photohle. London:
Thames & Hudson,
2008.
Breton, Andre.
Lane.
Ann
of Siirrealuuu. Translated
Alaiiife.ftoej
Breton, Andre. SiirrealLun anJ Paintiiicj. Translated by
Harper
&
by Richard Seaver and Helen R.
Arbor: University ot Michigan Press, 1972.
Simon Watson
Taylor.
New York:
Row, 1972.
Durozoi, Gerard. History of
the SiirrcalL<t Alovenwiit.
Translated by Alison Anderson.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002.
Krauss, Rosalind, and Jane Livingston, eds. L'Anioiir fm: Phototjraphy
Dawn
With essay by
c^'.Htrrealuuu.
Ades. Washington, D.C.: Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1985.
With essays by Julia
Lichtenstein, Therese. T^^'dight VLnon.i: SitrrealL<ni h/k) Parui.
Kelly,
Colin Jones, and Whitney Chadwick. Nashville: Frist Center for the Visual Arts,
2009.
Sawin, Martica. Siirrfaluuu
MA: MIT
Walker, Ian. City
Parui.
in E.xitc
am)
the Becjinnuu] of the
York School. Cambridge,
ijonjeJ unth (h-eanuK Surrealu<iu aiu^ (Wiinientaty
photography in iiitencar
Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002.
This brochure accompanies an exhibition of the same
at the
New
Press, 1995.
name
Bowdoin College iWuseum oFArt, Brunswick, Maine,
From February 27 through June
1
,
2014.
Back cover: Erwln BlumenFeld, An
1897-1969, Nu,)e Wavimj Bchim) Perforated Sen
ca.
1955-1957, gelatin slK'er print. Courtesy
oF Bruce SlK'erstein Gallen',
NY
Design by Wilcox Design, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cover image:
Man
Copyright
Ra\',
American, 1890-1976.
(Self-Portrait). 1935, gelatin silver print.
© 2014
Bowdoin College
Sfuice W'ritiiuj
Museum
Purchase,
Bowdoin College Museum
Lloyd O. and Marjorie Strong Coulter Fund, 1987.15.
9400 College Station
© 2014 Man Ray Trust / Artists
NY/ADAGP, Paris.
207-725-3275
Rights Society (ARS),
ol
Art
Brunswick, Maine 0401 1-8494
bowdoin.edu/art-museum
"
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Bowdoin