Man Ray's Montparnasse

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating View of Montparnasse
Review: Although I cannot attest to the scholarly quality of "Man Ray's Montparnasse", I believe that Lottman provides insight into this Parisian art district.

The reader learns about the different bars/clubs that were important. He learns who met where; the locations of various artist studios; and the general feel of the era. The dissent in the da da movement and the surrealist movement was significant.

Man Ray's neutral role in all of this is interesting. Lottman makes it appear that obtaining portrait sitters was one of Ray's primary goals. That along with women and his cars.

I enjoyed the book and believe that there is much to be learned from it. Caveat: If there are historicals errors as the other reviewer mentions, then it is difficult to know what you can and cannot believe.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating View of Montparnasse
Review: Although I cannot attest to the scholarly quality of "Man Ray's Montparnasse", I believe that Lottman provides insight into this Parisian art district.

The reader learns about the different bars/clubs that were important. He learns who met where; the locations of various artist studios; and the general feel of the era. The dissent in the da da movement and the surrealist movement was significant.

Man Ray's neutral role in all of this is interesting. Lottman makes it appear that obtaining portrait sitters was one of Ray's primary goals. That along with women and his cars.

I enjoyed the book and believe that there is much to be learned from it. Caveat: If there are historicals errors as the other reviewer mentions, then it is difficult to know what you can and cannot believe.

Rating:
Summary: Don't do Paris without it! A great book on Paris history
Review: It was merely coincidence that one day after returning from Paris (I always stay in a small hotel on rue Delambre in Montparnasse) I was in a bookstore in Colorado and picked this up just for the title.

Little did I know it would explode with stories and much interesting history and anecdotes about the photographer Man Ray and all his notorious friends & lovers in the pre WWII era of Montparnasse when Dada and Surrealism were taking hold. As I had spent so many hours wandering the same streets and sitting in the same cafes it really grabbed me and was a very interesting read.

In short, if you: (any or all of the below)-

Love Paris; plan to go there; have interest in the "lost generation/cafe society" era of Paris and particularly Montparnasse (one of my favorite areas in Paris);

then you are crazy if you don't buy this book. I am taking it with me for reference on my Montparnasse cafe crawls when I return next year.
Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Shallow Scholarship
Review: Man Ray's experience in Paris is a fascinating and complex subject, certainly worthy of a book unto itself. Unfortunately the author of this book seems content to present his readers with out-of-date information. I do not pretend to be an expert on Man Ray. But I have researched extensively the life and photography of Berenice Abbott, whose own career and reputation is remarkably tangled up with Man Ray's. In Paris she worked for him as his darkroom assistant, shared his fascination for Eugene Atget's photographs, was fired by Man Ray (when Peggy Guggenheim called him on the telephone and requested a portrait sitting with her instead of him) and, until she moved back to the States in early 1929, competed with him for fashionable Paris portrait sitters. What I discovered in reading "Man Ray's Montparnasse" is that Lottman has not dug very deep into recently published scholarship, and thus perpetuates certain inaccuracies. For example, Lottman writes that Julien Levy, a mutual friend of Man Ray and Abbott, loaned Abbott money to purchase the Atget's archive in 1927, shortly after Atget's death. In fact, Levy did not invest in the Atget archive until 1930, three years later. Perhaps this seems like a minor detail, but for me it raises questions about the accuracy of the entire project. Moreover, other recent scholars have gotten this detail right, including Bonnie Yochelson in her 1997 book on Abbott, "Berenice Abbott: Changing New York: The Complete WPA Project" and Ingrid Schaffner in "Julien Levy: Portrait of an Art Gallery" (1998). For those interested in a more scholarly treatment of Man Ray's life and work, I highly recommend Neil Baldwin's 1988 "Man Ray: American Artist." For those fascinated by Paris in the early 20th century, I suggest Billy Kluver and Julie Martin's richly illustrated "Kiki's Paris: Artists and Lovers 1900-1930."