Flying Dutchman
The painting Flying Dutchman originates from an early photograph Man Ray made of sheets on a clothesline in New York called Moving Sculpture. The painting’s title suggests that the image reminded him of ship sails and, more specifically, of Richard Wagner’s celebrated tragic opera The Flying Dutchman (1843), based on the legend of a ghost ship doomed to journey aimlessly forever, its sails in tatters.
Artwork Details
- Title: Flying Dutchman
- Artist: Man Ray (American, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1890–1976 Paris)
- Date: 1920
- Medium: Oil on paperboard
- Dimensions: 18-1/2 × 24-1/2 in. (48.3 × 64.8 cm)
- Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: Gift of Elise and Charlie Brown, 2017
- Object Number: 2017.271
- Rights and Reproduction: © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art
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