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Images of women, particularly the nude, dominate surrealist
photography. Unlike conventional images of the female body,
the use of unusual lighting and darkroom techniques emphasises
their artificiality. The figure is often distorted and in
several photographs in this selection, the head has been cropped
out.
The capacity of desire to transform reality is evoked by
images like Man Ray's Anatomies (1929), in which the
angle of the model's tilted head and neck makes her flesh
resemble an erect penis. The model is believed to be the photographer
Lee Miller, Man Ray's lover. In her own photograph, Nude
Bent Forward (c1931), Miller twins male and female form
in a similar fashion.
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Man Ray, Lee Miller (Neck), 1930, A. &
R. Penrose © Man Ray Trust/ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London
2001
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