Contents
1. Transcript
1.1. TAPE NUMBER: I, SIDE ONE, JULY 27, 1981
-
GOODWIN
- We're sitting in a home in Benedict Canyon, Beverly Hills, a lovely
summer afternoon. First, Mrs. Man Ray, I'd like you to tell me something
about your background and life before you met your husband.
-
MAN RAY
- I lived in New York City. I was born New York, New York, as they say,
and grew up there and became a dancer with Martha Graham. I met some
artists in New York City who taught me a bit about dada and surrealism;
and when I took a weekend trip from New York to L.A., 1940, I met Man
Ray. [tape recorder turned off] Well, being a dancer, I didn't know very much about art, painting or
sculpture, objects or photography, but I saw the first painting of Man
Ray at the Columbia University Museum, I think it was, and I fell in
love with it. It was called The Rope Dancer Accompanies Herself with Her
Shadows [1916], which I believe is now in the Museum of Modern Art in
New York City. Well anyway, the first weekend when I met Man Ray, he was there purely by
accident. He escaped Paris during--when the Nazis came in. He stayed
there awhile, but then he left. Being an American citizen he was allowed
to leave. And some friend in New York was going out West and took him
for a ride. I knew this friend, and he said, "I know this artist who's very, very
unhappy and would like to go take you out to dinner." And the first
thing, when I met Man Ray, I was able to talk to him about Paul Eluard,
the poet, about Marcel Duchamp, Tristan Tzara. I knew all about it
because this friend of mine in New York talked to me at length about it.
But I absolutely didn't know he was a photographer or did these
marvelous photographs. And then when we talked, we walked up the
boulevard here, and he took me for a row in Westlake Park. That same day
we talked all about art. He was very happy, believe me. And then he
said, I gave him the secret word. I don't know what the secret word was
that I gave him, but the third day I was living--we were together. And gradually we got a studio on Vine Street, a living quarter in the
same building, and then he started to paint madly. He painted the
Revolving Doors [1942], which had originally been just collages in
1916-17. He did the ten paintings in oil. Before he ever photographed
me, he did drawings of me, which were quite wonderful. Then he told me
he was a photographer. Actually he didn't. A friend of mine showed me a
picture in a magazine, and that's how I knew. He wasn't very excited
about his photography.
-
GOODWIN
- He was just modest?
-
MAN RAY
- No, he wasn't modest at all. It was just like a lithograph, one of the
black and white, for his art. Then he started photographing me quite a bit and painting me. He has lots
of portraits and things of me, of that period in Hollywood. That was ten
years he did a vast amount of painting and drawing, and he taught; he
had some pupils here.
-
GOODWIN
- Who were they?
-
MAN RAY
- The only one I remember, I remember there was a waitress. Of course they
paid for their-- She would come twice a week, she was very gifted, I
don't know her name. Daisy I think her first name was. And then there
was Florence Homolka for photography. And then there were a few
producers' wives, who were able to pay a bit of money. In order to live.
-
GOODWIN
- Which ones?
-
MAN RAY
- Well, there was the wife of--oh, dear me--William Wyler. I think his
wife, very beautiful woman. And various others I just don't remember. I
remember he did--made a lot of chess sets, designed, and some of the
lovely people who came to visit us. Ava Gardner and Hedy Lamarr played
chess, and they would come and play chess. It was very lovely to see
such beautiful women playing chess.
-
GOODWIN
- Were you a chess player?
-
MAN RAY
- No, he taught me how to play, and I played, but I never could get to the
end game. It was always difficult. But I played, because you had nobody
else to play with except twice a month, perhaps. Then a friend of ours
called Bill [William N.] Copley rented a firehouse, and he had a club.
Friends would come to play chess and paint from the models. It was a
very nice time.
-
GOODWIN
- How did you meet Copley?
-
MAN RAY
- Copley came, it was 1947, I believe. And he had just--He was very much
interested in having a gallery of art. And he had some money from his
father. He had a friend called John Taylor, who knew art quite well. I
mean he knew all about surrealism and dada; he knew those artists. So
they started this gallery [Copley Galleries, Beverly Hills], Man Ray
gave them the names of Max Ernst, [Roberto Sebastian] Matta [Echaurren],
the painter. Marcel Duchamp; and there were six exhibitions that Copley
had.
-
GOODWIN
- Cornell?
-
MAN RAY
- Joseph Cornell, and I don't really remember. But anyway, after six, not
a painting was sold to the Hollywood people; and Mr. Copley guaranteed
each artist 20 percent of the exhibition, which was very good. And he,
in exchange, received an important painting or sculpture. Then he closed
down the gallery because nothing was sold. Stop a while. [tape recorder
turned off]
-
GOODWIN
- You'd mentioned that the Copley Gallery closed.
-
MAN RAY
- Oh, yes, folded up. Oh, one person bought, I believe it was, a Max Ernst
and never, never came to call for it. When he bought it, he was stone
drunk; and when the gallery was closing. Bill searched out for him, and
he never even remembered that he bought this painting. But Copley gave
it to him anyway. He was a big steel man, whose name I don't remember.
It doesn't make any difference. I don't know what happened. Oh, I think in 1944 there was some interest in a modern museum here in
Los Angeles, here in Los Angeles [Circle Gallery]. And that was rather
interesting. They gave, had an exhibition of objects [1946]. He made all
these--now Where's my book here?--objects which he called Objects of My
Affection. There were no paintings on the wall. In the middle of the
gallery they put, maybe, sort of a pool table and a steering wheel,
which moved on springs and looked very erotic, like a man's sex, that
went back and forth [Auto-Mobile, 1945]. You could push this table, and
there were children who would come, and we told them, "Push the table,
have fun, touch everything," which they did because the children loved
it, all his objects. And the names of the objects were very interesting
too. I'm finished for the moment. [tape recorder turned off] Some of the--one of the objects was named The Sunkist. And why? Because
it was the broken box, crisscrossed, of Sunkist oranges. But it looked
very sad, for some reason. I loved it very much. And there was one
called Abracadabra, with tiny little pieces of wood, just pieces of wood
he would find in the studio or on the street, called It Moves Ever So Little, because, when you shook it, it moved a tiny bit. And I just
heard recently, this year, 1981, it was sold in London auction by
somebody. So some of these objects that looked so delicate still exist.
-
GOODWIN
- Do you remember the price?
-
MAN RAY
- No, I didn't. I didn't get the catalog from Sotheby's to find out the
price. One was called The Silent Harp [1944], which was on a tin can
with a violin head and some broken strings attached. It just didn't
move, it was just silent. And of course there was Trompe I'Oeuf [1963], which was a photograph of
an egg in a toilet seat. And then there were many wonderful [examples] of those objects, which I
said before were shown in this gallery, which as we were leaving
California we just gave to some people or they were destroyed; he
destroyed them. There was quite a wonderful one called The Palet Table [Palettable, 1941]
which he used to paint a picture on; and the legs were made out of
baseball bats, but small baseball bats, children's baseball bats. And
there was a hole in there to put a can of paint, and there was this
lovely person, called Kate Steinitz, who wanted it madly, and she got
it. Now it's in the museum here. County Museum [Los Angeles County
Museum of Art]. I believe she left it in her will to the County Museum.
-
GOODWIN
- What else seems memorable about the years you lived in Hollywood?
-
MAN RAY
- Oh, yes, because we met so many [people]. There was a very good friend
we met, Walter Arensberg, the collector. I met Walter and his wife,
quite lovely. They lived right in Hollywood. And there was this man
called "Allie" Lewin, Albert Lewin, who fell in love with Man Ray's
work, with him, his personality, right away. And we went often to his
house, and he bought some paintings, was given some paintings and
drawings. Lewin lived in a house made by [Richard] Neutra, the modern
architect. It's right on the beach of Santa Monica. And Lewin said
afterward, when we met him in New York, after he retired from films,
that Mae West bought his studio, and he was delighted that she was
sitting naked in his shower. There was an artist called Knud Merrild--he's from Denmark--who was very
abstract at that period. He made cutouts, which nowadays most of the
artists do but then was unusual. Very nice intellectual conversations. There was a Czech artist called Antonin Heythum, who invented a class at
Caltech [California Institute of Technology] on aesthetic design. We
would see them every Sunday out in Pasadena [to] talk about all things.
Of course [we] met all the European directors who were in Hollywood
during the war years, [who had] emigrated, like Jean Renoir, a very good
friend.
-
GOODWIN
- Why do you think the various Hollywood film people were so interested in
Man Ray?
-
MAN RAY
- Because they had heard his name. They were mostly Europeans, although
there was a friend called Donald Freeder, who was sort of an agent, and
who wanted to get Man Ray's work somehow into the industry. But they
didn't hear of him; they never heard of him. And so Jean Renoir and also
Al Lewin wanted him to be a principal actor in their films, but the
producers said they'd never heard of him; they wouldn't allow it. But
Lewin did get in his film, despite the producer, the chess set that Man
Ray designed, very inventive, put it in Pandora and the Flying Dutchman.
It was full screen. And also, of course, the photo of Ava Gardner that
looked like a painting. It's in color, very beautiful. I keep saying,
"very beautiful." It was very beautiful. Ask me some questions.
-
GOODWIN
- OK. Did Man Ray enjoy the Hollywood people?
-
MAN RAY
- Yes. He was so intelligent that he would do all the talking. They all
wanted to hear about the twenties, (which is happening now again too),
the twenties in Paris. They were not interested too much in what
happened before. Because his paintings are in the modern museum he was
always-- Except that they never got beyond 1918. He'd say, "I've done
all these modern things, and as far as you--" But now it's all settled
since he's dead. They all accept it. He'd laugh if he heard.
-
GOODWIN
- What kind of man was he when you met him?
-
MAN RAY
- He was very sad because he just came out from the Nazi--I have too many
stories, I can't tell [all of them]. When he left Paris, got into
Portugal, his companion on the train was another American called
Thomson.
-
GOODWIN
- Virgil?
-
MAN RAY
- Virgil Thomson. And Virgil had all the music, he didn't have any clothes
but he had music of all sorts--Germanic music, like Beethoven,
Mozart--set in his trunks. And Man Ray only had a little, tiny suitcase
with a dress suit, his pipes, couple of drawings, and the camera, which
on the boat was stolen, his camera, so he didn't have the camera when he
landed in America. The only interest he had in that camera is because he
did some films, photos of his exhibits. And on the way as he was going
to Portugal, he stopped somehow in Marseilles, and Max Ernst was
interned by the French at that moment. He gave him some money, and the
French released him when they knew the Nazis were coming. After a while
Max Ernst left for America with Peggy Guggenheim.
-
GOODWIN
- Why did Man Ray come to Los Angeles, other than that he had a ride here?
-
MAN RAY
- He had a ride to--His intention was to go to the Pacific islands like
Tahiti, to get away from it all, as they say. But we met, so he stayed
in California. My weekend was only in California, and I didn't go back
to New York. And I didn't continue with my dancing.
-
GOODWIN
- How old were you when you met him?
-
MAN RAY
- About eighteen.
-
GOODWIN
- And he was?
-
MAN RAY
- Fifty, about fifty. It didn't matter, age didn't matter. Oh, I forgot to
say I was living with him for about four or five years, I didn't believe
in marriage.
-
GOODWIN
- He didn't?
-
MAN RAY
- I didn't.
-
GOODWIN
- Did he?
-
MAN RAY
- Yes. Then when Max Ernst used our residence to get married here in Los
Angeles after his divorce from Peggy Guggenheim, he married--he was
going to marry Dorothea Tanning, the painter, American painter. And they
said, "You must be our witness." So he [Man Ray] said, "Well, if you will be my witness, I'll be your
witness." And that's how my proposal of marriage [happened].
-
GOODWIN
- How romantic.
-
MAN RAY
- So we got married.
-
GOODWIN
- Where were you married?
-
MAN RAY
- Beverly Hills, we got married in Beverly Hills by a justice of the
peace. And then Stendahl, various people, gave a party that day for us:
[Earl] Stendahl, a collector of pre-Columbian art, Walter Arensberg. We
had champagne in all these places. We had a lovely time.
-
GOODWIN
- Did you go away for a honeymoon?
-
MAN RAY
- No, we didn't. It was [a] continuous honeymoon. Why should we go away? Max Ernst and Dorothea went back to-- They had a
home in Arizona, and they left. We continued in Hollywood, and as he
said-- Oh, Max Ernst made a great painting, painted a great big painting
called Double Wedding in Beverly Hills, that's someplace in the world, I
believe in Switzerland.
-
GOODWIN
- Did your family approve of what you were doing?
-
MAN RAY
- They were very liberal, my family.
-
GOODWIN
- How come?
-
MAN RAY
- You know, liberals are born, more or less. My family was liberal. They
didn't know too much about it but knew everything was all right.
-
GOODWIN
- Man Ray says very little about his--
-
MAN RAY
- Family.
-
GOODWIN
- Yeah, in the autobiography [Self Portrait, London; Andre Deutsch, 1963].
-
MAN RAY
- Well, he didn't-- His family wasn't as liberal as my family. His
family--He left home when he was eighteen in order to paint, and of
course he had to have some money to paint. He worked at an office doing
maps, because he could draw very well. His family were very upset with
him because he'd won a scholarship for architecture which he didn't
accept. Architecture is sort of a bourgeois-- Anybody could be an
architect. Anyway, Man Ray didn't accept it; he only wanted to paint.
-
GOODWIN
- How did his father earn a living?
-
MAN RAY
- I don't know because he never talked about his family. I only met his
sister.
-
GOODWIN
- I think he had two sisters?
-
MAN RAY
- He had two sisters, one called Elsie and one called Doe. Doe is still
alive; she lives in Philadelphia. And his sister Elsie was marvelous;
she saved him for years. His first gallery was called Daniel's [Daniel
Gallery, New York], and then somehow Daniel went out of business, and
they were all put in storage; but Elsie saved them from the storage and
sent them on to Hollywood. That's how. And then, of course, the ones
that were in Paris-- He left his studio complete, everything on the
walls in Paris, just-- He had some friends protecting his things, who
were living there. And when they got in the Resistance, they took
everything out of his studio. The great big paintings they left at the
color dealer called Maurice Foinet, the big paintings. He had a
collection of paintings by various artists: Max Ernst, [Georges] Braque,
[Joan] Miro. This little attic room was broken into--but he seemed to
know who broke into it--so it could never be recuperated because it was
sold during the war years.
-
GOODWIN
- Did Man Ray also have a brother?
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MAN RAY
- Yes, yes, he had a brother. I think he was a poet, but I don't know
anything about him because Man Ray never wanted to talk about his family
to me, or to anybody.
-
GOODWIN
- Well, it's the obvious question: about his name.
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MAN RAY
- As he said, it's a personal question, so leave it there.
-
GOODWIN
- Did it have a meaning other than just the interesting sounds?
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MAN RAY
- The name was Ray, and his name was Man; so that was his name. And it
sounds so wonderful.
-
GOODWIN
- It sounds pleasant. Was he called by his friends both names?
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MAN RAY
- Both names, yes. I always called him Man, but all his old friends from
before the war in Europe called him Man Ray.
-
GOODWIN
- Did you like living in Los Angeles?
-
MAN RAY
- Oh, I loved it. With him it was wonderful: exciting things happening
every day, a new picture, a new idea. Conversation was terrific. Oh,
that's when we met Henry Miller too in Hollywood.
-
GOODWIN
- How did that happen?
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MAN RAY
- At a party. And then he would come every day, I think it was a year, the
first year while we were in Hollywood. And he would come every other day
or so with some very nice young friends called Margaret Neiman and
Gilbert Neiman, who was a poet, who translated from English into French
very well. He did all the poems of Paul Eluard, Gilbert Neiman. It was
very happy days.
-
GOODWIN
- You lived on Vine Street?
-
MAN RAY
- Oh, we lived in the heart of Vine Street, 1245 Vine Street, right across
from a market [Hollywood Ranch Market] that was open twenty-four hours a
day. If you were hungry, you could run across and get a frankfurter at
three in the morning. And it still exists, I believe. [It was demolished
in 1982.--Ed.]
-
GOODWIN
- Were there other artists?
-
MAN RAY
- No, there were no other artists in this building. Mostly bands would
come to stay; it was sort of like a hotel. And our place was meuble, it
was "furnished": the telephone. [And it was] very big, [with] the garden
outside. It was sixty-five dollars a month.
-
GOODWIN
- That's hard to believe. And how many rooms did you have?
-
MAN RAY
- Oh, we had one bedroom upstairs, and downstairs we had a great big
studio and another room off the studio. Then a few steps down there was
the kitchen, and then there was another room, which he turned into a
darkroom. And then we left when the landlord decided to double the rent. He said, "Well, it's time I moved to France." And he had a wonderful car,
a Graham supercharger. He drove like a fiend, but he was a very good
driver. We had it ten years, then the landlord bought it. He wanted it. Oh, my sister: I have a sister who had come to visit, and she was sort of
his assistant when he went off to do a few photographic jobs. My sister
Selma helped him and posed for him because she was very beautiful.
-
GOODWIN
- Well, in Self Portrait Man Ray said that he had the three essentials of
his life: he had a woman, a studio, and a car.
-
MAN RAY
- That's it, that was it. And the car, I imagine, must exist somewhere
because it's really one of those ancient, beautiful cars. A Cord body
and it could get off very quickly. I didn't know how to drive. He didn't
want me to drive.
-
GOODWIN
- Why not?
-
MAN RAY
- He wanted, as you say, a woman in the house. But I wasn't in the house.
Because he had so many intellectual painters, actually he didn't want me
to paint or photograph, [although] I did some photographing and
painting, but not seriously.
-
GOODWIN
- Well, by today's standards, would he be considered a chauvinist?
-
MAN RAY
- No, most women liked him very much because he would give them an
opportunity to talk, but I don't know, as a lover, maybe it's that way.
-
GOODWIN
- He was a small man.
-
MAN RAY
- Yes, he was the height of--He was five foot four.
-
GOODWIN
- That's about my height.
-
MAN RAY
- Yes, but he was thin; so he looked smaller. Maybe it's five-three. No,
he couldn't be, I was five-two. Five-four.
-
GOODWIN
- And he seems to be a dapper dresser.
-
MAN RAY
- Oh, he was always very well dressed, no matter what. Not what you could
call Beau Brummel, but he always looked smart. Oh, he never wore--When
he arrived in Paris, he gave up all his ties because the guy who took
him on this trip was a tie salesman, and he just couldn't stand it. And
he just started to wear a shoestring on his shirt; I believe he was the
very first one to do it, outside of the Texans. I'm very moved, I must say, by this conversation because it's bringing
back all my memories of that happy period. No rain. He had a barometer
from France that always said beau temps: "My goodness, that's broken!"
Now in Paris I have that barometer, and it's always down to rain, storm.
-
GOODWIN
- So, it wasn't broken.
-
MAN RAY
- No, it was never broken.
-
GOODWIN
- Well, it seems difficult to characterize him as having one interest more
than any other, whether he was a painter or photographer or a writer,
philosopher.
-
MAN RAY
- He was all that, all those. He loved to write, and this year, I believe
in December, an Italian writer is coming out with a book of Man Ray's,
all his writings and thoughts, which will be--It's being published this
year in Italy, but it'll be in three languages: English, French, and
Italian.
-
GOODWIN
- Looking over the autobiography again, I was surprised how well written
it is.
-
MAN RAY
- Oh, he just--he wrote that book in one sitting. He didn't change
anything.
-
GOODWIN
- Really?
-
MAN RAY
- Nothing at all. In three months he wrote the book.
-
GOODWIN
- It was written while you were in Spain?
-
MAN RAY
- No, the book's last chapter. But he went to some-- It was very cold in
our studio, and somebody-- In Paris [it was] very cold. And he had to
fill this stove every day with masout oil. A friend of ours was leaving
for three months, and she loaned us her little flat: very modern, very
well heated. It was in Montmartre. On the same floor where we had this
friend lived Victor Brauner, the surrealist painter. And that was very
nice having a neighbor like that, an old friend of Man Ray's.
-
GOODWIN
- Well, what particularly surprises me about the book, being a teacher, is
its eloquence considering his, Man Ray's, formal education was so brief.
-
MAN RAY
- Yes, he just went to high school. And then he got this scholarship. Oh,
he had this professor there who taught him everything, taught him
cartography, how to make maps--
-
GOODWIN
- Right.
-
MAN RAY
- --and architecture, gave him the full course, this young man who was
very much interested. He loved this teacher, who was so very brilliant.
And he would stay with him after class, and he would teach him when he
was going to high school, and that's how he got his education. And
afterwards, of course, when he went to the Art Students League, he went
to a few others, [Ferrer] Center, wherever he could get a nude model to
paint. Otherwise his photography was self-taught. He took it up just to
photograph his paintings, and he read directions in the film box, and
that's how he started his photography. Then the first year when he came
to Europe in 1921, all the artists wanted him to photograph their
paintings because he got--It was black and white, but he got the color,
the feeling, the life of the paintings. Braque and Picasso were his
first clients. There was, of course, [Jean] Cocteau, who introduced him
to toute ce set, all these people who wanted their photos taken. He was
taking their photos in the little hotel room. He would blow out the
lights all the time in the hotel in Montparnasse.
-
GOODWIN
- Well, is it possible to say that photography or painting was more
important to him?
-
MAN RAY
- I would say painting, yes.
-
GOODWIN
- He considered himself fundamentally a painter?
-
MAN RAY
- Right. Absolutely, absolutely.
-
GOODWIN
- But it was through photography that he was able to earn a living.
-
MAN RAY
- Yes, because his paintings weren't selling, his objects, no. And it
wasn't such a big living until he started to do the photography. In
between he would always be painting. He would photograph these rich
people who would pay, and he photographed all the artists and writers
for nothing, whose portraits exist now, forever, in every museum in the
world. And when he started-- He stopped doing professional photography
when he left Hollywood in 1951, only concentrated on his paintings and
his objects and writing, and did photography just for some friends who
wanted photographs, like Paul Eluard or Tristan Tzara, [Louis] Aragon,
the poet.
-
GOODWIN
- Was it very difficult for him to earn a living while you were living
here? Was it a struggle?
-
MAN RAY
- No, it was very simple. We didn't need clothes. I was always just with a
pair of little shorts and anything I would put on, just wrap around
something with a flower on it, a natural flower, and we would go to
cocktail parties like that. And everybody thought I was quite a rich
one. The foods, the vegetables and fruits, we were more or less on a regime.
We had cottage cheese, and I grilled things, very simply, not very-- Pure
foods, one must say, which now everybody's doing. Then I was doing it
because my mother taught me that too.
-
GOODWIN
- Were you working while you lived here?
-
MAN RAY
- No, I never worked. I was a model and I was dancing. I had to have all
the time to dance, and being a model we were free to take a job or not.
-
GOODWIN
- What was it like for you when you went to live in France?
-
MAN RAY
- Oh, it was very exciting because I met all the people I'd heard about,
the artists: Andre Breton, the poet and father of surrealism, Tristan
Tzara, the father of dada. Except it was a little difficult: I didn't
understand a word of French. I took a course there at one of the schools
for three months, and I was not getting anywhere. Just the radio and
just hearing all the time the French words, I got so I understood
French; and I write and read in French now, though I always speak in
English as much as I can.
-
GOODWIN
- Where did you live when you first arrived in France?
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MAN RAY
- We couldn't find a studio, [it was] very difficult. We stayed in a hotel
for three months. One day somebody said, telephoned him and said, she
heard there was a studio on Rue Ferou, a loft practically, and the
person wants to leave it. So he went every day. Nobody answered the
doorbell. He put his card under the door, put the telephone number of
the hotel [where] we were staying, and they telephoned the hotel and
came there. It was ten meters high--I forgot what ten meters is--it's
like a small church; it was that high. And March--when was it? March?
April?--a warm day, he took it. But he couldn't take it right away
because there was the key money involved. And they wanted this money
immediately. Had nothing to do with the rent; the rent was very low.
Then there was some rare-book dealer who took all his books in order
just to give him this money quickly, and he took all these autographed
books gratis, for nothing, as one would say. Oh, we had the studio from
1951 to--I still have it--1976 when Man Ray left this beautiful world. You can ask me a lot of questions. Just this terrific thinking that
I'm--
1.2. TAPE NUMBER: I, SIDE TWO JULY 27, 1981
-
GOODWIN
- Where are you living now in Paris?
-
MAN RAY
- I live five minutes from the studio. I still have the studio on Rue
Ferou, which has all the paintings and works and files of Man Ray; and
at least twice a week or three times a week I speak to art historians or
people who are writing theses. And at the moment there's going to be a
big retrospective in Paris at the Pompidou Museum [Centre
Pompidou]--first week, it opens the twelfth of December--and we've been
working on the catalog all winter, a very beautiful catalog.
-
GOODWIN
- What will be in the show?
-
MAN RAY
- Oh, there'll be about fifty paintings or sixty paintings, as many
objects as they can find. They have to go to collectors and [get the]
ones I have, drawings, books, photographs, about two hundred vintage
prints. (Man said, "I was never a wine merchant, why is it called
vintage?")
-
GOODWIN
- He liked to clown around.
-
MAN RAY
- He didn't clown, he's serious. His words were so interesting it would
come out amusing because it's American. He was a real American even
though he lived all these years in France. When he made anagrams and
puns, many of his objects were sort of puns, I mean the titles, very
amusing, his titles.
-
GOODWIN
- Why did he live in France?
-
MAN RAY
- Because when he first came he met all the dada, dadaist--he was a
dada--and [found] the sympathy [for] his art. When he was at that period
in America, he was treated as a dope fiend and a sex fiend. So he had quite a few exhibitions at the Daniel Gallery, and his first
show there at the Daniel Gallery was bought by one collector called
Eddy, second name Eddy [Arthur Jerome Eddy]. But this man was about
seventy-five or eighty years old, and his family couldn't understand
this modern art that he was buying. But how it happened was very amusing
because the show was over and not a thing was sold. And Man Ray was
living in the heart of New Jersey, called Ridgefield, without a stove
and without running water or toilets (no toilets, an outhouse), and he
was really getting very tired living out that way. Because he did work;
he went into New York--took two hours, Staten Island Ferry and various
ways to get out there--[so] that he found this gallery, Daniel's. This
Daniel was an ex-bartender, but he made enough money, and some poet told
him he should open up an art gallery, which he did. One of the first
shows [was] Man Ray. Nothing was sold at that first show, except this
man came in, and [when] he looked at [it], he said, "Who is this?" And
he turned around the paintings--I think there must have been about
eight--"Oh," he said, "I like these. I'd like to buy them. How much?"
And he offered half the price. And the gallery was so excited, they telephoned to the country, to a
neighbor or something--there was no telephone at Man Ray's house--and he
told him, he says, "You may--must do it." "Well, it's half the price we decided." "I won't take any commissions," said the gallery. So those paintings were sold immediately, and Ray moved into New York. I
think he got the old [William] Glackens studio. He painted Rope Dancer
there, I think. It was a small studio, and he would bring it up to the
ceiling all the time. I have in my possession a small drawing of his ideal studio that he
imagined, with paintings on the wall. But it's a very tiny watercolor,
and I shall have it blown up so you can see. Those paintings that were
done afterwards.
-
GOODWIN
- Once he was living in France, he didn't have any interest in returning
to the United States?
-
MAN RAY
- Which times are you talking about?
-
GOODWIN
- At any time. He was totally content living in his adopted country?
-
MAN RAY
- Oh, yes, he was because, as I said, nobody questioned his artwork, and
everybody wanted to be photographed by him (an honor). Then he worked for Harper's [Bazaar] I think, or Vogue, in the twenties.
He would go to New York; they would send him to New York to their
studios. New York studios, to photograph their models. No, he had no
interest in leaving because all his friends were there.
-
GOODWIN
- Well, when you were living in France after the war, what would he be
doing on a typical day?
-
MAN RAY
- Well, if it was winter, if it was eight degrees centigrade in the
morning, I would get up with a fur, put a coat over me. He made some
sort of a little shelter in our studio, because he built everything in
there. It was one great big loft. He built a little kitchenette for me,
and he built the toilet, bathroom, and with one other man he built a
balcony so he could paint up on the balcony, which was nearer the
skylights. One of the first paintings he did there was called Skylight, a very large
painting. Of course, the skylights were all mended with black cement, I
believe. Now it's in a museum in Italy, that painting; Skylight : that's
it. So I would get up and make breakfast. I'd go out with a coat over me,
freezing. We had a little burner, and I would make tea and coffee and
toast, and I would put it on a tray and bring it back into bed--I would
go back into bed too. So we had breakfast in bed every morning. Then I
would get out of the bed, and he would rest, and he would draw or read
in bed. He built certain things that would make it very convenient for
him, that pulled out, and he was able to draw on this table while in
bed. He built the lights around, very good lighting. We had an electric
blanket, [which] made it warm. He would read or draw, as I say; then he
would gradually get up, and if he felt like it, he would start painting. If not, if it was twelve or one [o'clock], we'd go out to have lunch in a
little restaurant down the street. In the afternoon he would work again,
or we would go to a museum. He was very much interested in the young
artists, to see what's going on in this world. And then about--between
five and seven we always received people [for] drinks and talk. People
from all--It must have been thousands of people I've met in my life
here.
-
GOODWIN
- Did you ever turn people away? Or everybody was welcome?
-
MAN RAY
- Well, they would telephone. It depended on the mood one was in. If it
was a good day, we said, "Come over." That's how it was. If he didn't
feel well, of course I wouldn't receive them.
-
GOODWIN
- Then you'd have dinner?
-
MAN RAY
- Have dinner, yes. We'd either go out for dinner or to some people's
houses or a party, cafe--always went to the cafe at night. Or a movie
once in the week. We didn't have any television, went to movies.
-
GOODWIN
- What kind of movies?
-
MAN RAY
- Always, as he said, we went to a place where he could be comfortable. If
the picture was boring, he'd go to sleep. But he was interested in films
because in the twenties he made about three films, four films, which
were in the cinematheques.
-
GOODWIN
- You would go see commercial films?
-
MAN RAY
- Oh, commercial films, yes. He said there was always ten minutes in the
film that would keep him, that was worth going to see the film. Ten
minutes in every film of excitement.
-
GOODWIN
- So you were nocturnal to a large extent.
-
MAN RAY
- Yes, we never went to bed before twelve or one.
-
GOODWIN
- How did your schedule vary in the warm weather?
-
MAN RAY
- You know in Paris, the month of August, everybody leaves. [It's] empty,
I mean for tourists. And friends who would have homes, let's say down
[at] St. Tropez, the south of France, or Spain, Italy, we were always
invited. And we would go. If he felt like it, we would go. We had one particular
friend who would always send his private jet plane for us; so we didn't
have to go to any trouble really. Everything was taken care of.
-
GOODWIN
- Who was that?
-
MAN RAY
- His name was Luciano Anselmino. He committed suicide since, after the
death of Man Ray. He loved him like a father.
-
GOODWIN
- Where'd you like to go on vacation?
-
MAN RAY
- Oh, I loved to go anyplace where I could swim, near the sea; so that's
where he would take me, [although] he never went into the water. When we went to Cadaques in Spain, that was where [Salvador] Dali, right
near where Dali, who was a friend of his, [lived]. And Marcel Duchamp wanted him very much to be near him. Marcel never went
into the water. Neither did Man. They would talk and play chess. And
Duchamp's wife [Alexina ("Teeny")] and me, Julie, we would go swimming.
-
GOODWIN
- There's a wonderful photograph of you and Man Ray and the Picassos on
the steps of Villa Californie.
-
MAN RAY
- Ah, yes, that was in Cannes.
-
GOODWIN
- What was it like visiting with Picasso?
-
MAN RAY
- It was very simple, nice, because he was a friend. No problem. First
thing, Picasso said he was doing a film, and he wanted Man Ray to help
him on it. Man Ray gave him some suggestions, some tips, how to do the
film. It's a sort of a film that he's painting a picture, Picasso,
behind glass.
-
GOODWIN
- Were there ever any jealousies or rivalries among the artists?
-
MAN RAY
- Oh, no. Oh, I imagine [among some of them], but not the ones I met, I
mean, not Picasso or Duchamp because they were friends. Man Ray always
helped Marcel Duchamp in his mathematical experiences, with Duchamp's
paintings. He was a very good mathematician, though he never had any
formal education on mathematics, but he knew it very well. He did a
series of paintings called the Shakespearean Equations, but they're
based on mathematical equations.
-
GOODWIN
- Duchamp was his oldest friend.
-
MAN RAY
- Yes, Marcel Duchamp. We were with him the day he died. Oh, he was fine.
We had a marvelous dinner of pheasant and wine, and we talked until it
was eleven-thirty at night, and Marcel was reading something very
amusing, a French writer. And we left. We said good night, and Duchamp
gave him his [Box in a] Valise again because the one he dedicated to Man
when he first made it in New York was in Naomi and David Savage's house.
So Duchamp went up and got this package which was the Valise, and we
left to go home. And half an hour later his wife telephoned and said he
passed away. But he didn't suffer. I mean, he was laughing.
-
GOODWIN
- Did you enjoy Duchamp?
-
MAN RAY
- Very much, because he spoke English, and I got every word of it. And
even when he spoke French, I understood.
-
GOODWIN
- What was he like to be around?
-
MAN RAY
- Well, he was very--You didn't meet him, hmm? He always talked. Like Man
Ray, they talked, talked. If you weren't--Of course, one wasn't up to
their mentality. You listened. Question.
-
GOODWIN
- Well, I have a feeling that, to some extent, words and ideas were more
of Man Ray's media than perhaps even images.
-
MAN RAY
- Oh, no. How can you say that?
-
GOODWIN
- Just by the regularity of his conversations, his love of entertaining
people.
-
MAN RAY
- But he was always working, he was always painting, always making
objects, as you know. You've seen them. He loved to paint. As he said,
"When I start painting, it's like when other people drink, I become like
drunk. I perspire all over." His passion was painting. Photography was
easy for him, very easy. And his objects were part of his paintings. I
mean he invented--his ideas were so varied. His paintings were all varied too. But if you look at them now all
together, you can see it's done by one man. They all have different
ideas. I don't want to be bored. Some painters, some artists, just make
one painting their whole lifetime. Look at his painting! You're excited
all the time, every one is different.
-
GOODWIN
- What would you say was his philosophy?
-
MAN RAY
- He had the words; I haven't got them. The pleasure of happiness, the
pleasure of freedom. Happiness and freedom in his paintings.
-
GOODWIN
- Did he have some disappointments? Were there things that bothered him?
Annoyed him?
-
MAN RAY
- There were a lot of things that annoyed him.
-
GOODWIN
- What didn't he like?
-
MAN RAY
- As he said, "For the experts, everything is impossible."
-
GOODWIN
- He didn't like art historians or museum curators?
-
MAN RAY
- Oh, he took them as they went, you know. Now, of course, all the art
historians, all the thesis people, all those things, everybody wants to
write about him.
-
GOODWIN
- Right.
-
MAN RAY
- Somehow they didn't understand at that moment when he was living and
working. I don't know why they didn't understand, but they didn't.
-
GOODWIN
- Did you come to Los Angeles for the exhibition in 1966?
-
MAN RAY
- Oh, yes, we came in 1966 for the [Los Angeles County Museum of Art
exhibition, October 25, 1966-Janaury 1, 1967]. Jules [Langsner] did the
catalog. He would come to Paris all the time to pick out the paintings,
you know, help pick out the paintings, objects. Then he did the catalog,
and then we came to Los Angeles. It was a very exciting moment. And then
there was a very good critic called Selts, I think.
-
GOODWIN
- [Henry] Seldis.
-
MAN RAY
- Seldis, He was quite wonderful, quite understanding. Man gave a talk to
a couple of thousand people the first week, or the first two days
rather, which there is--they took [it] down on tape--in the museum. And
the show was, I believe, very successful.
-
GOODWIN
- He was pleased?
-
MAN RAY
- Yes. He was very pleased. How it was hung, and--Very pleased.
-
GOODWIN
- Did he see the exhibition in New York in 1975?
-
MAN RAY
- No, he didn't. But the same exhibition, more or less, came to London.
-
GOODWIN
- Oh, yes.
-
MAN RAY
- And we went to Rome for the show in Rome of that exhibition, which had
more, because there were more collectors who didn't lend from Rome, but
they lent for the Rome show. It was a very exciting show. We had a
wonderful time. We stayed in Rome ten days, and after that we went to the seaside for
three weeks; and he had his seventy-fifth [eighty-fifth] birthday there.
And the host had a cake made of the Priape [Presse-papier a Priape,
1920]--maybe the Iron with Tacks [Cadeau, 1921]. (That, [Priape], was
another party.) A big, huge chocolate cake, all nails and chocolate and
cream. Everybody liked it very much.
-
GOODWIN
- Which works are among your favorites?
-
MAN RAY
- I like very much the Le Beau Temps [1939], It has five dreams in it.
Huge, it's almost as big as The Lovers [Observation Time--The Lovers,
1932-34], the one with the lips. Le Beau Temps has five different styles
in it. Each dream is a different style of painting, of his own
paintings, type of painting. [It] will be in the exhibition in December,
there in Paris. Actually, I love all of it, no problem, especially one that's called
Twenty Days and Nights of Juliet [1952]. It has forty paintings on a screen, a big screen. It had been a white
screen that came with the studio, and he divided it in forty squares. I
was away for twenty days; so he painted that picture, all those
pictures, in the time I was away. I was surprised.
-
GOODWIN
- Right. Are there some paintings you don't care for?
-
MAN RAY
- No, I like them all because they're all different, all a different
personality, they seem. Oh, that new series he started to do in 1958
called the Natural Paintings [Peinte Naturelle], which he didn't use
brush to [do] ; he just pushed them together, and sometimes he had to--
To one critic he said, "I sit on it." Of course, those didn't sell at
all--until now, I mean. I've sold them all. You only have to duel with
certain collectors, you know. If they wanted--He said, "Once you have a
picture, an object in your home, then you don't want to give it up. Then
you start to love it and see what's in there."
-
GOODWIN
- It seems that Italian collectors have been particularly interested.
-
MAN RAY
- Yes, I don't understand. Absolutely. When he died, in all the front
pages of Italy there was the story. Some of them had it in color,
completely reproduced paintings and objects and photographs. Yes, I
don't understand how they did-- The Italians look pretty good. They have
Michelangelo and--
-
GOODWIN
- As a matter of fact in the autobiography Man Ray says that Leonardo [da
Vinci] was probably his favorite artist.
-
MAN RAY
- Yes, Leonardo was. He didn't paint so many pictures. There might have
been [others] which were destroyed somehow through the ages. But [of]
the ones that still exist, he loved very much the painting of Leonardo
called St. Anne [Virgin and Child with St. Anne, 1500].
-
GOODWIN
- In the [Musee] Louvre?
-
MAN RAY
- Yes, the Louvre.
-
GOODWIN
- You've liked to go there?
-
MAN RAY
- I go only when a visitor wants to go. Otherwise I don't. I go to the
modern museums mostly.
-
GOODWIN
- Well, you said that he was interested in young artists. What did he
think of artists like [Andy] Warhol?
-
MAN RAY
- Warhol came to paint him. He did it with--What do you call those
pictures that come right out of the camera?
-
GOODWIN
- Polaroid?
-
MAN RAY
- Polaroid. He did about fifty or sixty Polaroid pictures, Warhol, and
then--well, you know how Warhol does his work. He said, "I like it. It
makes me look young,"It was a portrait of him. And then [David] Hockney, who lives here,
sometimes, in California, also came to do a portrait of him [Man Ray,
1973].
-
GOODWIN
- I wasn't aware of that.
-
MAN RAY
- They have a lithograph in one of the galleries here, the one in Venice,
California [L.A, Louver Art Gallery]. I'm going to have lunch with him,
Mr. [Peter] Gould.
-
GOODWIN
- Did Man Ray like playing the role of a senior member of the avant-garde?
-
MAN RAY
- I don't know. If the person reciprocated, they had lovely times
together. And he said if somebody said something bad about him, "I'll
spit in his face," in front of him, "They can say what they want to
behind my back."
-
GOODWIN
- Did he have any goals or expectations about the collection?
-
MAN RAY
- We never talked about it. [He had] the natural expectations. Sometimes
he hoped it would all go up in flames. But I'm sure he had a feeling,
like other artists, that it should exist, which now it does. I don't
know why you didn't write something down.
-
GOODWIN
- I have a notebook full of notes.
-
MAN RAY
- It would help me.
-
GOODWIN
- Well, you're also visiting a relative who lives in Los Angeles?
-
MAN RAY
- Yes, I'm staying with a relative of Man Ray, very distant.
-
GOODWIN
- Uh-huh. And you have family here?
-
MAN RAY
- I have a brother here and nephews who are in music, Very handsome
California types.
-
GOODWIN
- But do you still have relatives in the East?
-
MAN RAY
- Yes, I have four brothers in the East, nephews, and Man Ray's niece, who
I'm very close to, Naomi Savage, who's a photographer, and her husband,
who's an architect, paints.
-
GOODWIN
- In New York?
-
MAN RAY
- In Princeton, New Jersey. And Man Ray's sister Doe is still living;
she's in Philadelphia. I will see them all when I go back East.
-
GOODWIN
- And you've been visiting the last few summers.
-
MAN RAY
- Yes, last few years. My husband didn't like to travel really; so I never
traveled. I never liked to leave him. We were together twenty-four hours
a day.
-
GOODWIN
- Thank you very much for being interviewed.
-
MAN RAY
- A stupid interview, on my part, I'm sorry.