Nudo

Man Ray

Beginning in the 1920s Dada/Surrealist artist Man Ray began exploring the bare human figure, particularly the torso, as an object in and of itself. Using the bodies of both men and women, Ray created images that read as stories within themselves, often posing the figures in stark environments for a dramatic, chiaroscuro effect. He worked in photography, painting, sculpture, plaster cast, and printmaking to address the subject, sometimes with blatant sexual overtones and sometimes as simply as if the figure before him was a vase.

Three decades later, Ray's continued interest in the torso is evident in "Nudo", as he explores the sculptural lines of a prone body. The black, gestural elements were drawn with a crayon, and color fields in tangerine and earthy browns complete the image. Man Ray doesn't explicitly portray the figure in one way or another, but abstracts it in order to allow the viewer to create its story with his or her imagination.