FACILE. POÈMES. by ÉLUARD, PAUL AND MAN RAY - 1935

Original photographic wrappers, unbound folded sheets as issued. Small creases on front cover, slight edge wear, lightly toned as usual. Near fine in modern clamshell box. One of 1200 copies on thick vélin paper (there were also 25 copies with an original print signed by Man Ray) . With twelve images by the American photographer, Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky) in collaboration with the poet, Paul Éluard, whose wife, known as Nusch, inspired the poems and posed for the photographs. Beautiful Surrealist photographic book with the images interwoven in and around the poems. Parr and Badger, The Photobook, a History, Volume 1, page 105: ". . . one of the iconic French photobooks of the 1930s. . . Though ethereal rather than earthy, (the) pictures exude an elegant eroticism, especially when printed in photogravure so luscious that one just wants to touch it." Blank, Peter, Four Works by Man Ray, Stanford Libraries 2013: "The photographic techniques include negative imagery, solarization, and double exposures."