[The Guardian] The big picture: surreal shadow play with Maurice Tabard

The big picture: surreal shadow play with Maurice Tabard

The French photographer – ​once Man Ray’s assistant – helped pioneer many of the signature techniques of surrealism

The avant-garde artist and gallerist ELT Mesens was crucial to the spread and promotion of surrealism in 1920s Paris and Brussels – and later in 1930s London. A friend of André Breton and Man Ray and “soulmate” of René Magritte, he was instrumental in (briefly) bringing together the rival Belgian and French artists in the group. The occasion for this was a special June 1929 edition of the Belgian magazine Variétés, for which Mesens was art director. The magazine featured essays by Sigmund Freud (on jokes) and Louis Aragon and illustrations and images by Magritte and Max Ernst.

It was thought that much of the original archive of Variétés had been lost, but 30 years ago, in the archive of the Flemish daily newspaper Vooruit, a large cache of vintage prints from the magazine was discovered, miraculously preserved. The magazine had featured images by all the pioneers of surrealist photography including Man Ray, Berenice Abbott and László Moholy-Nagy.

Variétés. Photography and the Avant-Garde is at Huis Marseille, Amsterdam until 22 October

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