MAN RAY — Kunsthalle Basel, 1980

Kunsthalle Basel, Steinenberg 7, 1980. Original exhibition announcement card, 15 × 10.75 cm. Printed recto and verso.

Issued for Man Ray at Kunsthalle Basel, opening Saturday 19 January 1980, 18 Uhr, running through 24 February 1980. Recto reproduces Violon d’Ingres (1924); verso carries full exhibition, catalogue, and film-screening details.

The front reproduces one of Man Ray’s most recognisable images — the nude back with f-holes drawn in, the body as instrument. The reverse is where the card becomes especially useful: opening details, a 210-page catalogue (162 black-and-white illustrations, 15 colour plates) with texts by R. Penrose, G. Metken, Man Ray, G. Bussmann, J.-Ch. Ammann, and H. Molderings, and a film programme including Retour à la raison (1923), Emak Bakia (1926), L’Étoile de mer (1927), and Mystère du château du dé (1928).

Part of the wider 1978–1980 touring exhibition Man Ray: Inventionen und Interpretationen. The card reads not just as an invitation but as a compact institutional script for how Man Ray was being framed in German-speaking Europe at the start of the 1980s — the familiar Surrealist image on one side, the machinery of exhibition-making on the other.

Condition: Very good. Light handling wear, faint surface marks, and minor age toning consistent with age and storage. Original period item.