Man Ray: Human Equations

Man Ray: Human Equations: A Journey from Mathematics to Shakespeare

Produced in conjunction with an exhibition organized by the Phillips Collection and the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Working in Hollywood in the late 1940s, Man Ray’s Shakespearean Equations series draws on photographs of nineteenth-century mathematical models he made in the 1930s and was the culmination of fifteen years of exploration of the theme in a variety of mediums. This book displays side-by-side for the first time the original plaster, wood, papier-mâché, and string models, Man Ray’s inventive photographs of these unusual forms, and the Shakespearean Equations paintings they inspired. 

The book’s table of contents reads like a theatrical play with acts and scenes, and the graphic design reflects this concept in its treatment of centered format, side notes, and grid. Mathematical symbols are used (reservedly) within the titles.

Distributed by Hatje Cantz, 2015, paper on flexiboard, black painted edges, 238 pages, 22.8 × 24.7 cm

ISBNs: 377-573920-3; 978-377573920-7