Rare First Issue (No Phony "Second" Edition Text)
Photographs by Man Ray 1920 Paris 1934
Notes: The rare first issue, American variant, of one of the most recognizable photobooks of the 20th century.
According to David Levi Straus, writing in Andrew Roth's The Book of 101 Books: Seminal Photographic Books of the Twentieth Century, this book sold poorly and the publisher, as a marketing effort, replaced the title page of the unsold copies with one marked second edition. "After replacing the title pages of these copies—presumably a healthy percentage of the run whose sales had in fact, been slow to none—...he returned them for sale. Copies with the original title page are exceedingly rare."
This is Man Ray's first monograph. It reproduces 104 images in five sections, including a series of nudes, another of portraits of artists, and one devoted to Man Ray's distinctive Rayographs. Each section is preceded with a short text section, with contributions by Rrose Sélavy (a.k.a. Marcel Duchamp), Tristan Tzara, Paul Eluard, Andre Breton, and Man Ray himself. Picasso contributes a portrait.
Text in English and French. There was also a variant with a French title page. Roth, Book of 101 Books, pp. 80–81, for the "deuxième" edition.
Edition + Condition: First edition, American title page variant (no priority), first issue, without the fictional second edition slug on the title page. Bound in cardstock covers and plastic comb-bound. Cover with a minor vertical crease and light chipping to the outer edge. Center section of comb binding holding; upper and lower portions of front cover are coming loose (a typical problem). Plastic comb intact.
Publication: Hartford CT: James Thrall Soby, 1934.
Item No: #361567
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