Aldous Huxley (Primary Title)
Man Ray, American, 1890 - 1976 (Artist)
The English science fiction writer Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) published nearly fifty books during his lifetime, including Brave New World. This acclaimed 1932 novel is set in a chillingly dystopian London nearly six hundred years in the future where life is genetically engineered and pain free, but ultimately meaningless. Man Ray recalled that he posed Huxley “so his bad eye would not show,” a reference to the author’s impaired eyesight, which followed a childhood illness that left him half-blind in his right eye. Huxley’s limited vision significantly affected his work, as well as his physical appearance, which Man Ray mitigated in this portrait through his deft use of shadow and the tilted angle of his head, which greatly pleased his subject.
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