[Marcel Proust on His Death Bed]
At the urging of his friend Jean Cocteau, Man Ray rushed to photograph the author of Remembrance of Things Past on his deathbed. In the October/November issue of Les Nouvelles Littéraires, Cocteau wrote:
Those who have seen this profile of calm, of order, of plenitude, will never forget the spectacle of an unbelievable recording device come to a stop, becoming an art object: a masterpiece of repose next to a heap of notebooks where our friend's genius continues to live on like the wristwatch of a dead soldier.
This print initially belonged to Madame Robert Proust, the writer's sister-in-law.
Those who have seen this profile of calm, of order, of plenitude, will never forget the spectacle of an unbelievable recording device come to a stop, becoming an art object: a masterpiece of repose next to a heap of notebooks where our friend's genius continues to live on like the wristwatch of a dead soldier.
This print initially belonged to Madame Robert Proust, the writer's sister-in-law.
Artwork Details
- Title: [Marcel Proust on His Death Bed]
- Artist: Man Ray (American, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1890–1976 Paris)
- Date: 1922
- Medium: Gelatin silver print
- Dimensions: Image: 15.7 x 21.9 cm (6 3/16 x 8 5/8 in.)
Mount: 27.2 x 31.6 cm (10 11/16 x 12 7/16 in.) - Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: Gilman Collection, Gift of The Howard Gilman Foundation, 2005
- Object Number: 2005.100.183
- Rights and Reproduction: © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
- Curatorial Department: Photographs
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