Task
10 Surrealist Photographs to Know
Man Ray Tears 1930-32 Gelatin Silver Print
Judging from his inclusion of this image in other photographic compositions, Man Ray must have considered Tears one of his most successful photographs.
A cropped version of it with a single eye also appears as the first plate in a 1934 book of his photographs. The picture is a metaphor for the artificiality of art making, a scene that is staged for its truthfulness. Like a silent-screen star, the woman plaintively gazes upward to indicate her distress. However, the large, glistening teardrops are melodramatic, an exaggerated sign of sadness that makes a mockery of the sentiment, suggesting a connection with Man Ray’s abandonment by his lover Lee Miller in 1932. To Surrealists like Man Ray, the eye was an important symbol of inner vision, a concept central to their philosophy. For the artist, it seems to have had a more personal identification as well, appearing in his assemblages, films, and photographs.
Laszlo Maholy-Nagy Pomme Sucre 1939 Photographic Collage
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, a restless experimental painter, photographer, film maker, sculptor and graphic designer. New materials such as acrylic resin and plastic, new techniques such as photomontage and the photogram, and visual means including kinetic motion, light and transparency were encompassed in his wide-ranging investigation.
Young and articulate, Moholy-Nagy had a marked influence on the evolution of Bauhaus instruction and philosophy
Read a short biography on him here http://www.moholy-nagy.eu/
Phillipe Halsman The Dali Automicus 1948 Gelatin Silver Print
https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/philippe-halsman-dali-atomicus-1948
It took photographer Philippe Halsman and artist Salvador Dalí 28 tries to achieve the playful weightlessness of Dalí Atomicus. Halsman met Dalí and other artists in the Surrealist circle while he was living in Paris in the 1930s. In the late 1940s, the two men began to collaborate on a variety of photographic projects. Dalí Atomicus, perhaps the most iconic image to emerge from this collaboration, is a portrait of the artist inspired by his painting, Leda Atomica (1949), which appears in the composition’s right-hand corner—hanging suspended above the ground like the easel, chair, stepstool, cats, water, and Dalí himself.
Halsman photographed some of the most celebrated figures of the mid-20th century, from artists to movie stars to politicians. He began his career photographing for fashion magazines and cosmetics companies, later venturing into photojournalism, with 101 Life magazine covers to his credit. His closely cropped, sharply focused portraits were infused with warmth and a sense of humor, evincing his ability to make his subjects feel comfortable in front of the camera.
Jerry Uelsmann Colorado Rock 1981 Gelatin Silver Print
http://www.uelsmann.net/about.php
This photograph is an original printed and signed by Jerry Uelsmann in 1991 and printed on platinum paper. Jerry Uelsmann produced a one time platinum edition of 25 prints. Jerry Uelsmann produced these in the world class Henningsen Platinum Photographic Studio in Taos, NM. The Henningsen Studio had the capability to produce some of the largest platinums in the country. These images for sale are from the Henningsen estate and have never been on the market. Uelsmann has been a major creative force in fine art photography for nearly four decades. He is the master innovator of the multiple image. Uelsmann does not use any digital processes. He creates each print in the darkroom using three to eight enlargers. He is no longer printing any photographs dated before 1980 or any platinum images. His mystical and enigmatic images abound with mystery and symbolism. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1967 and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1972. His reputation as an educator is as impressive as his reputation as a photographer
Maggie Taylor Girl in a Bee Dress 2004 Pigmented Ink Jet Print
click here to read what makes Maggie's process different:
http://www.photoshop.com/spotlights/maggie-taylor
Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison da Vinci’s Wings 1998
http://parkeharrison.com/statement
Scott Mutter The Escalator 1988 Gelatin Silver Print
Mutter used the same techniques as Jerry Uelsmann.
http://www.photographymuseum.com/mutter/scottmutterNewGallery.html
Arno Rafael Minkkinen Foster’s Pond 2000 Gelatin Silver Print
Unmanipulated surreal images
See some more of his images here http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/arno-rafael-minkkinen-photography
http://www.houkgallery.com/artists/arno-rafael-minkkinen
Adam Fuss Love 1992 Silver Dye Bleach Print
With his large-scale color photograms of water, babies, or, in this case, rabbits, Adam Fuss has breathed new life into the camera-less technique that became the hallmark of such modernist photographers as Man Ray and László Moholy-Nagy in the 1920s. Fuss made this image by placing two slaughtered and eviscerated rabbits on a photosensitized sheet of paper and exposing it to light. The spectacular color effects result from the chemical interactions between the rabbits' viscera and the properties of the printing paper. Combining the expansive gestures of Action Painting with the composed symmetry of a heraldic seal, Fuss turns this traditional symbol of fertility into an emblem of the rapturous, often gut-wrenching intertwining of two selves united in love.