The Toulon Art Museum presents the major exhibition "Man Ray: Magic of the Image" from July 4 to October 31, 2026.

From July 4 to October 31, 2026, the Toulon Art Museum presents the major exhibition "Man Ray: Magic of the Image."

Magic of the Image—or, strange beauty:

The title is borrowed from a late work by Man Ray—a color aquatint etching created in 1971 based on one of his own *clichés-verre* (glass prints)—which is featured in the exhibition.

For him, magic is not mere entertainment. It is what happens when an image refuses to settle for simply representing the world and instead invents a new way of seeing, a new meaning, and a new presence. Through rayographs, solarization, *clichés-verre*, readymades, surrealist portraiture, and fashion photography—a genre he helped pioneer—Man Ray crafted this strange beauty that emerges when reality allows itself to be enchanted.

A six-part journey:

The exhibition unfolds across six chapters covering the major periods of his body of work, from his early years in New York and his meeting with Marcel Duchamp to his final years in Paris on Rue Férou.

1 - Being Born Modern

1911–1921. New York, Dada, and Duchamp

2 - Paris: Artistic Ferment

1921–1939. Objects, Surrealism, and visual thinking

3 - Photographic Experiments

1922–1936. Light as invention

4 - Experiments in Form

1921–1971. Objects, books, and metamorphoses

5 - Man Ray and Fashion

1922–1937. Surrealism dresses Paris

6 - The Final Studio

1940–1976. Hollywood, Paris, and works of creative freedom. A body of work shaped by friendships and faces:

The exhibition reveals an artist who is more expansive, more playful, and more deeply engaged with his times than the partial image of him usually in circulation. The journey unfolds through the creative partnerships that nourished his work: Marcel Duchamp, a friend of fifty-three years; poets Tristan Tzara, Paul Éluard, André Breton, and Robert Desnos; painters Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst, Yves Tanguy, and Salvador Dalí; the musician Erik Satie, his collaborator on *The Gift* (1921); and the women who populate his work—Adon Lacroix, the Belgian poet and his first partner; Kiki de Montparnasse, queen of the Roaring Twenties; Lee Miller, the student who became his lover and a future war photographer; Adrienne Fidelin, the Guadeloupean dancer and first Black model featured in a major American fashion magazine; and Juliet Browner, his final partner and muse for thirty-six years.

Through this journey, the exhibition reveals an artist who never accepted boundaries between disciplines, techniques, or realms of imagination. For him, painting, photography, objects, cinema, fashion, and poetry all stem from the same desire for freedom. The image is never static; it circulates, transforms, and reinvents itself.

At a time when images saturate our daily lives, Man Ray’s work retains a singular power. His images do not confine the gaze; they open it up. They unsettle certainties, shift visual habits, and invite everyone to see things differently.

Two centuries after the invention of photography, his work remains astonishingly modern. It reminds us that art can still be a space for experimentation, poetry, and freedom. Curatorship – Loans of works:

> Pierre-Yves Butzbach, manager of the Telimage agency and the Man Ray photo archive since 1995.

> Franck Mei, Chief Curator and Director of the Museums of Toulon, assisted by the curatorial team of the Toulon

Museum of Art.

This exceptional gathering of works was made possible through the generosity of private collectors and the invaluable assistance of Telimage.

Links : 

https://toulon.fr/agenda/magie-de-limage-exposition-des-oeuvres-de-man-ray

https://provence-alpes-cotedazur.com/que-faire/sortir/toutes-les-sorties/exposition-man-ray-magie-de-limage-toulon-fr-6583871/

https://www.provencemed.com/agenda/exposition-man-ray-magie-de-limage/