Man Ray. Dead leaf 1943.
Remarkable for its simplicity, this photograph of a brittle castor oil plant leaf appeared with four others by Man Ray in the October 1943 issue of Minicam Photography. In its caption, Man Ray wrote with unusually poignant intensity that he knew that “the dying leaf would completely disappear tomorrow.” One is tempted to interpret the work’s melancholy as the artist’s growing dissatisfaction with his lack of recognition and financial success in Los Angeles, and his fear that the work he had left behind in France would be destroyed during the war.