Péchage

Born Emmanuel Radnitzky in 1890 in Philadelphia, Man Ray was a leading artist of 20th century America. Man Ray awakened to the European avant-garde art at Armory Show in 1913 in New York. In 1915 he met Marcel Duchamp who came from Paris to the United States, and subsequently started the New York Dada movement around 1917. In 1921, Ray moved to Paris where he interacted with Surrealist artists and became active in various fields, including photography, filmmaking, and object creation. A number of humorous objects aiming to deviate from traditional art concepts were produced.

Works of Surrealist artists including Man Ray have distinctive features such as collage, automatism, and pun. The bottom board of the box painted in blue, white, and green has three balls of cotton aligned in a horizontal orientation and three peach-shape objects to result in a landscape-like composition. The title Pechange was coined by combining “peche,” “peyasage,” and “nusage” meaning peach, landscape, and cloud respectively in French.