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Man Ray's Montparnasse
An international correspondent for Publishers Weekly , Lottman uses the work and writing of New York-born photographer Ray as a focus to profile the quarter of Paris where he lived from 1921 to 1940. He was part of the intellectual and artistic milieu the quarter was known for. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
264 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2001
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About the author
Herbert R. Lottman
33 books10 followersHerbert Lottman was an American journalist and author who spend most of his life in France.
He majored in English and biology at the University of New York, graduating in 1948 and earned a master’s in English from Columbia in 1951.
In 1956 he moved to Paris and became the manager of the Paris branch of the publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux. He also was writing for Publishers Weekly for four decades and wrote a novel, Detours From the Grand Tour.
But he is most reknowned for his biographies on French personalities and his writings on French intellectual life.
He majored in English and biology at the University of New York, graduating in 1948 and earned a master’s in English from Columbia in 1951.
In 1956 he moved to Paris and became the manager of the Paris branch of the publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux. He also was writing for Publishers Weekly for four decades and wrote a novel, Detours From the Grand Tour.
But he is most reknowned for his biographies on French personalities and his writings on French intellectual life.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
June 16, 2024
By 1921, wrote Malcolm Cowley, the younger US intellectuals
"were preparing a great migration eastward into new prairies of the mind." This meant Paris. Among the migrants was a chap from Brooklyn, Man Ray (he called himself), who sharpened his senses in Paris and became an innovative visual artist.
Montparnasse then was a creative party; this report has, at times, the dulled strains of a corporate party. If you don't want a big bio of Man Ray or his 2 great loves, Kiki and the astonishing Lee Miller *; if you only want cameos of Picasso, Gert Stein, Andre Breton, Duchamp, Louis Aragon, Tzara, Paul Eluard, herein is a basic summary of a legendary era. Man Ray is host of a fabulous Surreal celebration that includes Nancy Cunard and Peggy Guggenheim. New stars of the arts and bohemian scene pack Paris.
Moving toward WW2, dangerous shadows loom : Soviet spy Ilya Ehrenburg snoops around Montparnasse pimping for Stalin. In late 1939, Janet Flanner in The New Yorker blithely reports, "Paris has suddenly been having a fit of prosperity, gaiety and hospitality..." which abruptly ends in September. As France falls to the Germans, the story becomes exciting. No one knows what to do. America is still neutral. The author catches the chaos-anxiety of Man Ray (1890-1976) as he wisely moves to the US in 1940. He does not return to Paris until 1951.
Big Plus : the book, beautifully produced, is filled w Man Ray's photos, from Luis Bunuel to Meret Oppenheim to Lee Miller, stunningly nude. Today, at last, Man Ray has the artistic recognition he missed during his lifetime. A gallery of colorful personalities, all worth knowing; alas, personality is what the writing lacks.
* If you havent read about Lee Miller, you'll want to know more. She wanted to learn photography and decided May Ray should be her teacher. Various books about her.
"were preparing a great migration eastward into new prairies of the mind." This meant Paris. Among the migrants was a chap from Brooklyn, Man Ray (he called himself), who sharpened his senses in Paris and became an innovative visual artist.
Montparnasse then was a creative party; this report has, at times, the dulled strains of a corporate party. If you don't want a big bio of Man Ray or his 2 great loves, Kiki and the astonishing Lee Miller *; if you only want cameos of Picasso, Gert Stein, Andre Breton, Duchamp, Louis Aragon, Tzara, Paul Eluard, herein is a basic summary of a legendary era. Man Ray is host of a fabulous Surreal celebration that includes Nancy Cunard and Peggy Guggenheim. New stars of the arts and bohemian scene pack Paris.
Moving toward WW2, dangerous shadows loom : Soviet spy Ilya Ehrenburg snoops around Montparnasse pimping for Stalin. In late 1939, Janet Flanner in The New Yorker blithely reports, "Paris has suddenly been having a fit of prosperity, gaiety and hospitality..." which abruptly ends in September. As France falls to the Germans, the story becomes exciting. No one knows what to do. America is still neutral. The author catches the chaos-anxiety of Man Ray (1890-1976) as he wisely moves to the US in 1940. He does not return to Paris until 1951.
Big Plus : the book, beautifully produced, is filled w Man Ray's photos, from Luis Bunuel to Meret Oppenheim to Lee Miller, stunningly nude. Today, at last, Man Ray has the artistic recognition he missed during his lifetime. A gallery of colorful personalities, all worth knowing; alas, personality is what the writing lacks.
* If you havent read about Lee Miller, you'll want to know more. She wanted to learn photography and decided May Ray should be her teacher. Various books about her.
April 5, 2015
I have an unpublished novel titled Montparnasse so of course I'm going to like this book. Lottman has written about some of my favorite people--Camus, Man Ray, Cocteau, Chagall, Picasso. If any of these folks' works turn you on, read the book.
December 6, 2022
This is part biography, part history. Biography of Man Ray, history of the surrealism art movement of the 20s and 30s. A lot of my reading is about art and artists of that period and France during that time, so I thought I would find the book more interesting than I did. It talked about Kiki, Lee Miller, Breton, Duchamp, and all the others, even Gertrude Stein. It had photos.
January 22, 2017
Thoroughly enjoyable read, doesn't lag for a sentence. And as the author describes, because Man Ray was a neutral party and friends across most of the feuding Dadaists, Surrealists, older guard, high society, and the communist enthusiasts, we get to hear from them all.
Quotes:
At Armory Show in NYC in 1913: paintings by Picasso ranged from $486 to $1,350. Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase was priced at $324 (and found a buyer).
Man Ray: "Cezanne the naturalist; Picasso the mystic realist; Matisse of large charms and Chinese refinement; Brancusi the divine machinist; Rodin the illusionist; Picabia surveyor of emotions"
Hans Richter: "Picabia is the passionate destroyer, Duchamp the aloof anti-creator, Man Ray the pessimistic and tireless inventor."
Although the Surrealists constantly censured each other for compromising with capitalistic society, as when they worked in theater or wrote for the newspapers, Surrealists also had to eat.
Robert Desnos dismissed Breton as an imposter who lied to his friends, accused him of hypocrisy because he criticized others for making money with their art while he himself lived "on the fat of the land" by selling paintings, praising only those artists on whom he made money.
*Confronted with Eluard's stubborn determination to communism, Man Ray remembered telling him: "A poet doesn't need to justify his existence." *
Andre Breton believed it his duty to object to the opening of a cabaret on boulevard Edgar Quinet that dared to exploit the sacred-to-Surrealism name Maldoror, and had denounced Robert Desnos for his apparent endorsement of the place.
What Breton did not mention in the manifesto was the rapid mobilization of a Surrealist commando to attack the offending establishment. On the night of February, 14th, 1930, the Breton brigade marched on the cabaret, located between the Montparnasee railway station and the cemetery, bursting in during a formal banquet. The solemnity of the occasion served as a stimulus to Breton, who strode to the bar and rapped it fiercely with his cane as he proclaimed, "We are the guests of the Count de Lautreamont!" He then joined Andre Thirion in wrenching tablecloths from the tables, causing a shattering of bottles, glasses, and plates. Invaders, diners, and waiters came to blows. The Surrealist side took at least one casualty, as poet Rene Char received a knife thrust to the thigh.
Louis Aragon (having gone militant communist): "In 1930 and 1931, we have attained this paradoxical result: our doctrine is considered a luxury product precisely because of its revolutionary character. Bourgeois society accepts it only in smaller and smaller printings."
Shortly before the scheduled opening of the International Writers Congress for the Defense of Culture, on June 21, 1935, Andre Breton saw Ilya Ehrenburg leave La Rotonde to cross boulevard du Montaparnasse to buy tobacco for his pipe at the shop alongside the Dome. Breton followed him inside, announced who he was, and proceeded to slap Ehrenberg repeatedly across the face—Ehrenberg stood with his arms at his sides, demanding to know what it was all about.
It was about, and of course Ehrenburg knew it, the offensive language the Russian writer had employed about the Surrealists in a book published in Paris a year earlier. Ehrenberg had referred to the Surrealist group as a "stinking pheasant". Surrealists pretended to support the Revolution, he wrote, but most of all they avoided constructive labor. Yet they were not entirely idle, for they actively studied "pederasty and dreams". They busied themselves devouring a legacy—or a wife's dowry. "The Soviet Union disgusts them because over there people work."
Quotes:
At Armory Show in NYC in 1913: paintings by Picasso ranged from $486 to $1,350. Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase was priced at $324 (and found a buyer).
Man Ray: "Cezanne the naturalist; Picasso the mystic realist; Matisse of large charms and Chinese refinement; Brancusi the divine machinist; Rodin the illusionist; Picabia surveyor of emotions"
Hans Richter: "Picabia is the passionate destroyer, Duchamp the aloof anti-creator, Man Ray the pessimistic and tireless inventor."
Although the Surrealists constantly censured each other for compromising with capitalistic society, as when they worked in theater or wrote for the newspapers, Surrealists also had to eat.
Robert Desnos dismissed Breton as an imposter who lied to his friends, accused him of hypocrisy because he criticized others for making money with their art while he himself lived "on the fat of the land" by selling paintings, praising only those artists on whom he made money.
*Confronted with Eluard's stubborn determination to communism, Man Ray remembered telling him: "A poet doesn't need to justify his existence." *
Andre Breton believed it his duty to object to the opening of a cabaret on boulevard Edgar Quinet that dared to exploit the sacred-to-Surrealism name Maldoror, and had denounced Robert Desnos for his apparent endorsement of the place.
What Breton did not mention in the manifesto was the rapid mobilization of a Surrealist commando to attack the offending establishment. On the night of February, 14th, 1930, the Breton brigade marched on the cabaret, located between the Montparnasee railway station and the cemetery, bursting in during a formal banquet. The solemnity of the occasion served as a stimulus to Breton, who strode to the bar and rapped it fiercely with his cane as he proclaimed, "We are the guests of the Count de Lautreamont!" He then joined Andre Thirion in wrenching tablecloths from the tables, causing a shattering of bottles, glasses, and plates. Invaders, diners, and waiters came to blows. The Surrealist side took at least one casualty, as poet Rene Char received a knife thrust to the thigh.
Louis Aragon (having gone militant communist): "In 1930 and 1931, we have attained this paradoxical result: our doctrine is considered a luxury product precisely because of its revolutionary character. Bourgeois society accepts it only in smaller and smaller printings."
Shortly before the scheduled opening of the International Writers Congress for the Defense of Culture, on June 21, 1935, Andre Breton saw Ilya Ehrenburg leave La Rotonde to cross boulevard du Montaparnasse to buy tobacco for his pipe at the shop alongside the Dome. Breton followed him inside, announced who he was, and proceeded to slap Ehrenberg repeatedly across the face—Ehrenberg stood with his arms at his sides, demanding to know what it was all about.
It was about, and of course Ehrenburg knew it, the offensive language the Russian writer had employed about the Surrealists in a book published in Paris a year earlier. Ehrenberg had referred to the Surrealist group as a "stinking pheasant". Surrealists pretended to support the Revolution, he wrote, but most of all they avoided constructive labor. Yet they were not entirely idle, for they actively studied "pederasty and dreams". They busied themselves devouring a legacy—or a wife's dowry. "The Soviet Union disgusts them because over there people work."
May 4, 2008
First, this hardcover book published by Harry N Abrams Inc. is a pleasure to hold. The paper and binding are so elegant, as befit a book about art and style set in Paris in the 1920s. I was interested in this period because my nephew wrote about Marcel Duchamp, the artist, and about the Surrealist movement. He is a foremost character in the book.
Man Ray, the photographer, figures in other biographies of the period. Reading "Montparnasse" made me wish I was a short train ride from Paris, because the book could serve as a guide to all the little streets of the quartier, now much changed undoubtedly. It would have been nice to see Paris in its rickety days of artists' lofts and cafes that served cheap dinners to the artists and their friends.
Perhaps I should have given this five stars. I am not quite finished reading it, but so far, very good and gossipy!
Man Ray, the photographer, figures in other biographies of the period. Reading "Montparnasse" made me wish I was a short train ride from Paris, because the book could serve as a guide to all the little streets of the quartier, now much changed undoubtedly. It would have been nice to see Paris in its rickety days of artists' lofts and cafes that served cheap dinners to the artists and their friends.
Perhaps I should have given this five stars. I am not quite finished reading it, but so far, very good and gossipy!
March 25, 2024
He leído “El Paris de Manray” de Herbert R. Lottman , 2003, Editorial Tusquets, 280 pags., que es una biografía sobre el fotógrafo Manray y a la vez te sitúa en el Paris de ese momento y del barrio de Montparnasse en la época de las vanguardias (dadaísmo y surrealismo).
Que ameno y que bien retrata psicológicamente el trabajo personal y las relaciones entre todos ellos. Si pudiera elegir una época pasada para vivir seguramente elegiría ese barrio parisino en esa época.
Voy a ver si conozco la mansión de Emak Bakia en Biarritz de la que hablo Oskar Alegria donde rodó una película experimental.
Que ameno y que bien retrata psicológicamente el trabajo personal y las relaciones entre todos ellos. Si pudiera elegir una época pasada para vivir seguramente elegiría ese barrio parisino en esa época.
Voy a ver si conozco la mansión de Emak Bakia en Biarritz de la que hablo Oskar Alegria donde rodó una película experimental.
September 23, 2021
This book has gravitas in terms of its cast of characters, evocative narrative and production values. I will often return to it before visiting a germane exhibition just to get into the mood. Oh to have been there, but this gets you close.
July 16, 2014
I'd been hoping for more of an idea of what daily life was like in Montparnasse but I like Man Ray and once I realised the book was about him and not the city I accepted that and took it for what it was. Essentially a bio of Man Ray during the time he was in Paris with pen sketches of the people he knew.
June 5, 2007
A dual-biography of Man Ray and Montparnasse. Fairly engaging
February 19, 2010
Man Ray is the new FDR.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews