From September 12 to December 6, 2009, Lu.C.C.A. - Lucca Center of Contemporary Art, will feature Man Ray. The Fifty Faces of Juliet.
Man Ray was one of the most unpredictable, genial, brilliant, anti-conventional, contradictory, impertinent, challenging and eclectic figures in the history of 20th century art. In this exhibition, organizedin collaboration with the Marconi Foundation of Milan, fifty portraits of the artist’s wife, JulietBrowner, whom he photographed between 1941 and 1955, will be presented. The Fifty Faces of Juliet was conceived by Man Ray in the early 1950s as a book in honor of his wife Juliet, but also as a collection of photo-graphic works begun in Los Angeles in 1941. Fifty photographs, original prints using different techniques and styles, some hand colored, in various sizes that Man Ray dedicated to Juliet, the definitive muse of his life.
Many of the techniques invented by Man Ray, such as solarization, over-development, dithering and grains obtained in the shooting or printing phase, were applied to the Juliet series. Since painting remained his great passion, he came up with the idea to touch up his photographs using colored pastels, drawing directly on the paper. It is for this reason that the series The Fifty Faces of Juliet isunique in its kind; it shows all the abilities of an artist who uses every expressive means available to attain the sublimations of his own ideas.
The Fifty Faces of Juliet is the story of a love and of a lifetime.