Schiaparelli to Support Man Ray Exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York will be hosting Man Ray: When Objects Dream with the proud support of Maison Schiaparelli, from September 14, 2025, through February 1, 2026. This is the first exhibit to focus on Man Ray and his essential role in the Dada and Surrealist movements, though informal. Dada, or the “anti-art” movement was about challenging societal norms, and purposefully making art to disturb the status quo, making people feel uncomfortable or discombobulated; art that makes you question.
The exhibition captures the experimental spirit that defined Man Ray’s cross-media practice during the early 20th century, with more than 150 works that span across multiple mediums, photography, painting, objects, and film, and his iconic “rayographs”.
New York bares much significance to Schiaparelli and Man Ray’s evolution, as that is where they met in 1919, through their mutual friend Gabrielle Buffet-Picabia, a key figure in the Dada and avant-garde circles.Their collaboration grew beyond bounds in Paris as they continued to play important roles in their artistic community.
Portraits of Elsa Schiaparelli by Man Ray, 1933 © MAN RAY TRUST
Daniel Roseberry says, “I’ve always had a special feeling for Man Ray—like me, he was an American (born in Pennsylvania in 1890), and a Virgo. He was also, more significantly, an outsider in Paris, a voyeur of a scene who later became synonymous with it. And like Elsa Schiaparelli, he blurred the lines between fashion and art: Before fashion became a commercial enterprise, it was an artistic one, and that’s in no small part thanks to them, and how easily they moved between genres and creative identities.”
Schiaparelli supports this exhibition in honor of the friendship and ardent collaboration between the Maison’s legendary founder Elsa Schiaparelli and Man Ray. Both utilizing art as a medium of play, illusion, transformation and bringing those forms to fashion, planting seeds for the future. Elsa Schiaparelli became model and muse for Man Ray, while Man Ray acted as a partner who could translate Schiaparelli’s designer visions into dreams. The art of fashion is highlighted as such: art.
Article by Seana Watson, Associate Fashion Editor, PhotoBook Magazine
Tearsheets by Daniel López, Art Director, PhotoBook Magazine
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