Robert Desnos (Primary Title)
Man Ray, American, 1890 - 1976 (Artist)
Man Ray praised the French poet, radio personality, and journalist Robert Desnos (1900–1945) as “one of the most brilliant exponents of Surrealism.” Desnos supported himself by working as a newspaper journalist and literary columnist but devoted most of his energy and talent to lyric poetry and automatic writing. He made a name for himself in Surrealist circles during the saison des sommeils (period of hypnotic sleeps), a series of self-hypnosis sessions held in André Breton’s apartment in 1922. As captured in Man Ray’s photograph in the February 1929 issue of Transition magazine, Desnos would enter a trancelike state during these sessions and channel the persona of Rrose Sélavy, the feminine alter ego of Marcel Duchamp. He would then recite poetry, puns, aphorisms, and anagrammatic phrases. As Man Ray recalled, Desnos often fell asleep in his studio. “He’d slump down in an armchair,” the artist recounted, “and doze peacefully for a half-hour. Opening his eyes, he continued an interrupted conversation as if there had been no time lapse.” This seated portrait captures the unfocused gaze of Desnos’s large eyes with dark circles and drooping eyelids giving him a dreamlike countenance, as if he had just awakened from a deep slumber.
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