MAN RAY
Cadeau.

Cast metal multiple, 1974. 165 mm; 6½ inches, height. Signed, titled and numbered 4143/5000 in white ink on the handle. Initialed and numbered 4143/5000 on the printed plastic justification card and numbered 4143/5000 in ink on the justification booklet. Cast by the Mirano Foundry, Venice. Produced by Giorgio Barutti, Venice. Published by Luciano Anselmino, Turin. With the original casing and box.

Provenance: Private collection, New York.

In order to defamiliarize the viewer with an object, Man Ray (1890-1976) used repetition with some variation. To subvert the meaning of a hand iron, Man Ray used the iconic Cadeau readymade, an iron with tacks affixed to the sole in 1921. To reference the original readymade and its later replicas, Man Ray later created two other iron readymades, Le Fer rouge (1966) and Phare de la harpe (1967). Keeping in the Dada tradition, the title of the latter work is an anagram, an exercise in visual and literal meaning. These readymades were followed by the editioned metal multiple Cadeau in 1974.

Man Ray's father worked in a garment factory and ran a small tailoring business out of the family home. He enlisted his children to assist him from an early age. Man Ray's mother enjoyed designing the family's clothes and inventing patchwork items from scraps of fabric. Man Ray wished to disassociate himself from his family background, but their tailoring left an enduring mark on his art. Mannequins, flat irons, sewing machines, needles, pins, threads, swatches of fabric, and other items related to tailoring appear in almost every medium of his work.