Conceived in 1930. This photograph was printed in 1960 and
is number 4 from an edition of 8. The image depicts Lee Miller, fellow
photographer and frequent collaborator of Man Ray. The pair shared a brief
romance and lived together in Paris from 1929-32. Here, Man Ray portrays
Miller, tightly cropped, posed kneeling in an erotic fashion. The placement of her
hands, clasped across her bare buttocks, suggests prayer and chastity - as the
work’s title La Prière intends. Interestingly, in French la prière
has a double meaning, that of both prayer and an invitation. Man Ray’s mastery
of lighting and framing transforms the figure's body into a soft peach-like object
reminiscent of the pear-shaped nudes by the American photographer Edward Weston from the mid-1920s. This photograph, transcending its
documentary role, evolves into a surreal object of both visual and
linguistic semantics buffered by an incidental elegance.