A l'heure de l'Observatoire - Les Amoureux
Silver gelatin print
3 1/4h x 8 1/2w inches

Estimate: €12,000 - 18,000

Madrid, Paris & Berlin, 2007-10, p. 149
Tokyo, 2010, no. 162

Anvers, 1994, fig. 475
Santa Monica, 1996-97, p. 113
Gérone, 2006, p. 106

This print is in very good general condition. With two indentations near the upper left corner visible in raking light only.
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Man Ray's monumental painting A l'Heure de l'observatoire – les amoureux (Observatory Time – the Lovers, 1932-34, private collection), is arguably among the most celebrated images of 20th century art. Depicting the lips of Lee Miller floating in a sky above the Paris observatory, it was painted in response to the ending of their relationship in 1932. The painting remained in the artist's collection and featured in numerous International Surrealist Exhibitions in the 1930s. It was sold in 1949 to Bill Copley, artist and Man Ray's friend who ran a gallery in Los Angeles in the late 1940s. Copley then sold the painting at Sotheby Parke-Bernet in 1979, establishing an unprecedented price for any Surrealist painting.

Man Ray further enhanced the popularity of this image by photographing it. Able to work across media, Man Ray frequently transformed existing compositions into new works. The ꦫpresent black-and-white photograph makes an important statement since the artist has removed the lipstick colour in favour of the graphical aspect of the composition itself and the symbolism of the lips, representing two bodies, that of Lee Miller and Man Ray side by side. With the advent of Pop Art in the late 1950s, the painting became more pertinent as it could be seen as a pre-cuꦏrsor to the monumental, highly colourful images of popular images, the primary features of the movement.

By the late 1960s, Man Ray embarked upon replicating the painting by printin🃏g monumental colour photographs, and in the early 1970s, a limited edition c🐬olour lithograph.