Man Ray Portraits

Photography of a surrealist's friends and lovers

A dominant figure of Dada and Surrealism, Man Ray worked prolifically throughout his career in Paris and Hollywood.  Of the many media and forms in which he worked, the current exhibition at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery (up from the National Portrait Gallery in London) brings together many of Ray's photographic portraits, illuminating this facet of his art.

The 1930s Parisian portraits are joyfully vivid. The artistic world, where everybody who was anybody was photographed by Ray, is opened up to us – from fellow Dadaist Marcel Duchamp to Gertrude Stein, taking in a heap of writers, composers and filmmakers. This is the Paris for which we yearn. The panoply of celebrity continues throughout the exhibition's chronology, including later portraits of Virginia Woolf, Pablo Picasso and Catherine Deneuve and work for Harper's Bazaar, Vogue and Vanity Fair.

Beyond this voguish set, there are dazzling works depicting Ray's series of muses: Kiki of Montparnasse, Lee Miller and his wife of 37 years, Juliet. There is a hint of a more private world here, as well as some of the exhibition's boldest artistry; it is in these works that the aesthetic capacity of photography is pushed forward. The solarization technique Ray developed with Miller is striking still, also featuring in a wonderful 1955 portrait of Leslie Caron. Meanwhile, the famous, sublime Le Violon d'Ingres from 1924 encapsulates so much of its time and place (the exoticism of the turban, the surreal violin f-holes and the exquisite beauty of Kiki herself) that it shines of its own accord.

In concentrating on photographic portraiture, the exhibition only hints at the breadth of Man Ray's innovation. Through the photographs and magazine spreads, we glimpse other aspects of his prolific and playful work: assemblages, films, a chess set, a preposterous smoking device. The portraits of Stravinsky, James Joyce and Yves Montand are all marvellous to see. But perhaps most interesting of all is how we imagine Man Ray's surrealist conceptions and constructions fitting into his Paris–Hollywood world, as we see it through his portraits.

Edvard Munch: Graphic Works from the Gundersen Collection

Lithographs and woodcuts, landscapes and eyes

As he became increasingly renowned, printmaking proved a successful way for Edvard Munch to disseminate his work. Moreover, repeated iterations provided an opportunity to alter the mood and dynamics of each print. Changing the ink and paper colours for example, or the absorbency of the paper, shifts the focus and intensity. There are many examples in the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art's well-presented exhibition (running till September) where multiple iterations are displayed side by side. Rather than diluting the work, the vivid differences focus us more intently on the image.

The rippling anguish of Munch does not always appeal to me completely. However, new aspects were revealed in this collection, more so than by any admittedly casual glance I have given his work before. The exhibition highlights the key theme of landscape, and how Munch's wandering figures are affected by their surroundings. Loneliness pervades, as the landscape seems to either envelop or emanate from the desolate subjects. There are expanses of water, foreboding forests and swirling skies. Munch had heard a scream "coursing through nature", he said of the experience which led him to paint The Scream.

A rare print of that ubiquitous image is here, and the background landscape is repeated in the nearby Anxiety (shown in two versions). Nature screams indeed. From these prints, the figures stare intensely, hollow-eyed. The piercing eyes in Munch's work strike us throughout – take the masterly self-portrait, or Woman with Red Hair and Green Eyes. They are either weary and sunken or frighteningly desperate. Again, the variety inherent in the printmaking process subtly changes these emotive characteristics within the same image.



The exhibition, taken almost entirely from a private Norwegian collection, focuses on the short period 1895–1902, and so the style is generally unvaried. The lonely figures and the swirls are repeated from room to room. Whilst it might be even more enlightening to see the original paintings on which some of the prints were based, there is enough to engage to the end. Certain pieces stand out, including The Sick Child and the powerful Two Human Beings. Meanwhile, I was drawn to the more stylized forms of woodcuts Kiss IV and Head by Head, striking and vibrant. Nature encroaches still, through the heavy-grained texture, but here perhaps there could be deliverance from the anguish.

The Market, 17 December

Christmas joy in Edinburgh

If you are lucky enough to be enjoying the light breezy air of Edinburgh this Christmas, be sure to visit The Market on 17 December. It will be found merrily ensconced in St Columba's-by-the-Castle (Johnston Terrace) and promises a generous abundance of treats.

Brought together by Amelia of Little Red (whose gorgeous one-off jewellery pieces will be available), the focus of The Market is on great local design. The list of stalls is inviting, ranging from illustration to ceramics. There is plenty to whet the appetite at the Facebook page.

Check it out on Saturday. I'll be there, and I cannot wait.

Making Marks

Beautiful new art in Edinburgh

I had the pleasure of seeing the exhibition Making Marks yesterday evening, at Art’s Complex on London Road. It features six artists, and I was there to support my friends Antonia Gallacher and Jemma Derbyshire. Their work is beautiful, as always, and both are exhibiting pieces which depart from what I have seen of theirs before. For both, it is a successful move.

Continuum.continuous, Antonia Gallacher

Toni has added colour, and now yellow and dark pink draw us in and lift her meticulous ink drawings. I was happy to see flocking birds and interlocking circles returning from her previous work. I genuinely love it; the geometrical abstraction is teeming with life. There is more this time, including Hang #1 and Equilibrium.Pink, two evocative pieces featuring silhouetted cranes.

Meanwhile, Jemma includes no colour this time. It makes a striking difference to the work, usually bursting with blues and purples. The two City Studies are haunting and the collages, which I have admired before, have been given the prominent position they deserve.

City Study #2, Jemma Derbyshire

Monochrome features heavily throughout the exhibition, but interest does not wane as different artists’ work is often hung closely together. The styles are complementary, and it is impressive how coherent the space is as a whole. So the City Studies find their partner in Vivienne Russell’s Undiscovered Landscape.

But Toni’s is not the only colour. Katy Anderson’s fashion-inspired works are fun and exciting. In Dazed and Confused, a tessellating figure made from varying patterned papers fills a large sheet. And the title alone of Hoody on the Run adds mischief.

A lovely exhibition. See it if you can.