[Photograph]: T.S. Eliot

by RAY, Man

$14,000 · Offered by Biblio

[London, 1935. Unbound. Fine. Gelatin silver photograph. Measuring 5" x 6¼". Tipped onto thick off-white card stock at the topedge, which itself is tipped onto a folder of the same material. The verso of the photo is blank and a loose piece of tissue guard is laid in. A photograph of Eliot from the right side capturing him in a three-quarter view dressed in his typical natty tie and jacket with a pocket square. Fine. The photograph comes from the library of Donald Gallup, who was Eliot's friend and bibliographer, and who served as the curator of the Yale Collection of American Literature. On the outside of the folder, Gallup has made two pencil notes. The first explains: "T.S.E. told me, this photograph was made in London by Man Ray in the late '30s. Virginia Woolf and others were photographed by Man Ray on the same visit to England. DCG 27 may'47." It is followed by an additional note: "BUT Man Ray's Paris Portraits 1921-1939 by Timothy Baum, lists a photo from the same series (#35) as 21b." Whether the photo was taken in London or New York, Gallup was unsure, but another photograph from the same session in which Eliot looks directly into the camera, was sold at auction in 2014 and date: "T.S. Eliot worked for the London publishers Faber & Faber and Man Ray photographed him at his office on 23 January 1935." No matter the place of origin, an intense and arresting photograph of this influential poet who help usher in American modernism.

• Year: 1935
• Binding: unknown

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