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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 709.2
EAN num: 9780810943339
ISBN number: 0810943336
Label: Harry N. Abrams
Manufacturer: Harry N. Abrams
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 264
Printing Date: September 01, 2001
Publishing house: Harry N. Abrams
Sale Popularity Level: 1089306
Studio: Harry N. Abrams
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Product Description:
In the years between the two world wars, Montparnasse, on the Left Bank of Paris, was a hotbed of artistic experimentation, social change, and notorious affairs. Man Ray, the renowned photographer, was there to document it all: he took his camera into cafes, salons, artists' studios, and writers' homes, and the resulting pictures provide a singular--and intimate--perspective on this legendary period in cultural and art history.
Well-known cultural and social historian Herbert R. Lottman interweaves Man Ray's biography, filled with intriguing stories of artists, models, dealers, poets, and hangers-on, with his stunning black-and-white images of everyone from Picasso, Duchamp, Dalí, and Gertrude Stein to the famed model Kiki, poet André Breton, and Marcel Proust on his deathbed. The result is an enthralling view of that remarkable time and place, a subject that has endless appeal.
Amazon.com Review:
The Paris dada manifesto of 1921 'Dada Overthrows Everything' posed a dare to posterity: 'What does Dada do? 50 francs reward for anyone who finds the way to explain us.' Cultural historian Herbert Lottman finds a great way to explain dada: by focusing on its court photographer, Man Ray. Man Ray's Montparnasse brings you into the salons of Peggy Guggenheim and Gertrude Stein, and gives context to his dazzling photos: his naked mistress Kiki impersonating a violin; Duchamp impersonating a woman named Rrose Selavy (pronounced 'c'est la vie'); Picasso as a toreador; and Proust on his deathbed, asleep at last, seemingly at peace and in some sort of reverie.
If one man's life could sum up the explosively creative international arts enclave Montparnasse in Paris between the wars, doubtless it would be Man Ray. Who else crossed paths with Hemingway, Mayakovski, Calder, James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, Atget, Satie, Cocteau, the battling bohemians André Breton and Tristan Tzara, and Arno Breker, who wound up as Hitler's favorite sculptor? It was a tumultuously innovative time. The antiwar Swiss loathed the elitist French dadaists; dadaists quarreled with surrealists. Breton broke a writer's arm with his cane because he badmouthed Picasso, Duchamp, and Gide. When Malcolm Cowley punched out a reactionary restaurateur, it was a great career move--his fame spurred his nascent literary career. Apollinaire warned young dada friends against Cocteau ('Don't trust Cocteau! He's a cheat and a chameleon!'), because he was a darling of high society. Eluard said the surrealists would 'shoot him down like a stinking animal.'
What made Man Ray an instant insider was his skill with the camera and his refusal to join the culture wars. 'My neutral position was invaluable to all,' he said. 'I became an official recorder of events and personalities.' 'He was like the kid on the block with the guitar invited to everyone's party,' writes Lottman. 'He lived a double life, dressing for dinner in society, then reassuming a bohemian posture for life among the writers and painters.'
Lottman's book is delightful, a quick read that makes legendary names in the history of art come alive as wildly misbehaving young people. When Henry Miller would drunkenly harangue a café, he earned a catcall: 'Why don't you write a book?' Reading Lottman, you get a vivid sense of how the overlapping lives in that astounding time and place erupted in art. It's a privilege to be invited to such a historic party. --Victoria Ellison
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Rated by buyers 
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There are a few almost legendary places whose draw reaches across the centuries of time and space and makes people wish that they could hop into a time-machine and go for a vacation or visit. For me, one of those fabled eras is Montparnasse Paris at the turn of twentieth-century. I've always thought of this location at this historical period as the "Paris Camelot of Art" and for me its draw is stronger than say the "Camelot of King Arthur."
Lottman has done a marvelous job of combining the many important artists and art movements that mark this time and place into a single readable, but informative book. It makes a nice companion to "KiKi's Paris: Artist and Lovers 1900-1930" (see my review). Unlike that book, which is like a huge family album of photographs of the people who passed through the area at that time in history, this book delves deeper into the personalities that formed the knights of the "rustic wine barrels" serving as the round tables of the "passage de l'Opera" in 1919.
The author picked Man Ray as his connection to all the people described in the book because the gregarious American visitor did what few of the other personalities described could do. He was able to get along with the various stratum of society that inhabited Montparnasse at the time. His camera opened the doors of the Dadaists as well as the mansion gates of high society and the rich aristocrats. Once his reputation with a camera was established, every important visitor to the area wanted to have their portrait made by the American living in Paris. Since he also did a lot of assignments for many of the most important news and fashion magazines of the era, his reputation and location was soon known worldwide. Much to his disgust, but to the benefit of his wallet, having him take your portrait became a status symbol. Despite this economic sucess he was still able to remain a part of the anti-society, anti-everything Dada movement.
People liked Man Ray and they liked having their pictures taken too. Everyone it seemed liked to have him take his or her picture. May Ray of course, didn't consider photography an art and considered himself to be primarily a serious painter.
The strength of this book is how the author manages to paint so many interesting biographical portraits and yet have them all interact in the geographic jumble that was Montparnasse. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this book.
Rated by buyers -
It was merely coincidence that one day after returning from Paris (I always stay in a small hotel on rue Delambre in Montparnasse) I was in a bookstore in Colorado and picked this up just for the title.
Little did I know it would explode with stories and much interesting stories (I'm no historian and cannot verify their accuracy) and anecdotes about the photographer Man Ray and all his notorious friends & lovers in the pre WWII era of Montparnasse when Dada and Surrealism were taking hold. As I had spent so many hours wandering the same streets and sitting in the same cafes it really grabbed me and was a very interesting read.
In short, if you: (any or all of the below)-
Love Paris; plan to go there; have interest in the "lost generation/cafe society" era of Paris and particularly Montparnasse (one of my favorite areas in Paris);
then you are crazy if you don't at least check this book out. I'll use it for reference on my Montparnasse cafe crawls when I return subsequent year.
Rated by buyers -
Although I cannot attest to the scholarly quality of "Man Ray's Montparnasse", I believe that Lottman provides insight into this Parisian art district.
The reader learns about the different bars/clubs that were important. He learns who met where; the locations of various artist studios; and the general feel of the era. The dissent in the da da movement and the surrealist movement was significant.
Man Ray's neutral role in all of this is interesting. Lottman makes it appear that obtaining portrait sitters was one of Ray's primary goals. That along with women and his cars.
I enjoyed the book and believe that there is much to be learned from it. Caveat: If there are historicals errors as the other reviewer mentions, then it is difficult to know what you can and cannot believe.
Rated by buyers 
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Man Ray's experience in Paris is a fascinating and complex subject, certainly worthy of a book unto itself. Unfortunately the author of this book seems content to present his readers with out-of-date information. I do not pretend to be an expert on Man Ray. But I have researched extensively the life and photography of Berenice Abbott, whose own career and reputation is remarkably tangled up with Man Ray's. In Paris she worked for him as his darkroom assistant, shared his fascination for Eugene Atget's photographs, was fired by Man Ray (when Peggy Guggenheim called him on the telephone and requested a portrait sitting with her instead of him) and, until she moved back to the States in early 1929, competed with him for fashionable Paris portrait sitters. What I discovered in reading "Man Ray's Montparnasse" is that Lottman has not dug very deep into recently published scholarship, and thus perpetuates certain inaccuracies. For example, Lottman writes that Julien Levy, a mutual friend of Man Ray and Abbott, loaned Abbott money to purchase the Atget's archive in 1927, shortly after Atget's death. In fact, Levy did not invest in the Atget archive until 1930, three years later. Perhaps this seems like a minor detail, but for me it raises questions about the accuracy of the entire project. Moreover, other recent scholars have gotten this detail right, including Bonnie Yochelson in her 1997 book on Abbott, "Berenice Abbott: Changing New York: The Complete WPA Project" and Ingrid Schaffner in "Julien Levy: Portrait of an Art Gallery" (1998). For those interested in a more scholarly treatment of Man Ray's life and work, I highly recommend Neil Baldwin's 1988 "Man Ray: American Artist." For those fascinated by Paris in the early 20th century, I suggest Billy Kluver and Julie Martin's richly illustrated "Kiki's Paris: Artists and Lovers 1900-1930."
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