An Unexpected Encounter: Man Ray Meets Andy Warhol

Man Ray was drawn to the curves of Meret Oppenheim, Lee Miller, Kiki de Montparnasse, Elsa Schiaparelli, and the torsos, shoulder blades, and clavicles of countless other Surrealist muses. A young Andy Warhol, on the other hand, liked to draw his own lines.

On a privileged wall at Frieze Masters, two private collections—one of Warhol drawings and one of Man Ray photographs—share a single space thanks to John Cheim, one half of the New York gallery Cheim & Read. After noticing the beautiful similarities between the bodies and forms and the delicacy of the women’s faces, cheeks, necks, and hands, Cheim brought the works together, pairing Man Ray’s photographs and nudes from 1930s and ’40s Paris with Warhol’s early minimalist drawings. Along with some of Ray’s most beloved and fetishized muses and mistresses, Warhol’s early drawings show the Pop artist’s affinity with a few strokes of the pen—predating his iconic forays into more mechanical processes but an early sign of his admiration of the human form.

On view at Cheim & Read, Frieze Masters 2013, Main, Booth C17, October 17th – 20th.

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