On the occasion of "Editions" auction on June 26, 2019, PIASA presented two works by Man Ray, including a photolithography: "Les amoureux - A l'heure de l'observatoire".
In 1932, Lee Miller, muse of Man Ray since 1929, oppressed by the artist, left him and returned to New York where she began her career as a photographer. Man Ray immediately began the large painting "Les amoureux - A l'heure de l'observatoire", which would forever mark the history of art. The artist depicts the lips of Lee Miller, his assistant, model, and partner, floating in the sky above the Paris Observatory. The image symbolizes two bodies, those of Lee Miller and Man Ray, laying side by side. The original painting this photolithography is based on is a testament to an intense love affair that ended in 1932.
Man Ray (1880-1976)
A l'heure de l'observatoire - Les amoureux - 1970
« The red lips floated in a gray-blue sky, above a crepuscular landscape where one could see, on the horizon, an observatory and its two domes, like breasts, barely suggested in the half-light. It is a feeling I got from my daily walks in the Luxembourg gardens. Probably due to their dimensions, the two lips resembled two bodies embracing. It was very Freudian.»
(Man Ray, Autoportrait, Actes sud, 1998, pp. 334-335)
This image became one of Man Ray’s most popular ones. He worked on it through several mediums, a black and white photography, then amonumental color format in the 1960s, before finally creating this photolithograph proposed during this auction.
