Image: Man Ray, Plate from 'Électricité', 1931, heliogravure rayograph. Courtesy of Lyndsey Ingram
The London gallery Lyndsey Ingram is bringing Man Ray and Lee Miller together at Frieze Masters 2026, where its presentation at Booth F12 in Regent's Park can be seen from October 14 to October 18. The display pairs photographs by Man Ray from the 1930s with 19 photographs by Miller drawn from the Lee Miller Archives, setting the work of two artists whose careers were closely linked side by side.
The two met in Paris in 1929, when Miller arrived with a letter of introduction from the photographer Edward Steichen, a friend to both. Their relationship is often described as an intense and turbulent love affair, but according to the gallery it was just as important as a creative partnership. Working closely together, and at times interchangeably, they pushed photographic experiment in new directions, most notably through their shared development and use of solarisation.
Man Ray began his career as a commercial artist before building a practice that ranged across photography, painting, sculpture, assemblage and film. The gallery points to his meeting with Marcel Duchamp in 1915 as a turning point, with Duchamp's ideas and friendship drawing him toward the avant-garde. The presentation includes two complete portfolios. "Les Champs Délicieux" (1922) gathers 12 silver prints of Rayographs with a preface by Tristan Tzara, while "Électricité" (1931) contains ten heliogravure rayographs and photomontages introduced by Pierre Bost. Other works listed are "Gisèle Prassinos Reading her Poems to the Surrealists" (1934), "Space Writing" (1937), a 1931 self-portrait, and the 1937 portfolio "La photographie n'est pas l'art," with a text by André Breton.
The Miller photographs span 1930 to 1964 and follow her path from model and photographer to war correspondent and into the post-war years. They are prints made for the Lee Miller Archives. Early Paris images include "Tanja Ramm under a bell jar" (1930) and a 1931 portrait of Man Ray. From the war years come "Fire Masks, Downshire Hill, London" (1941), solarised corsetry photographs made at the Vogue studio in 1942, and "Couple running 'Veiled Eiffel Tower', Paris" (1944). Later portraits show Isamu Noguchi in New York in 1946, Pablo Picasso at Villa La Californie in Cannes in 1956, and Joan Miró at London Zoo in 1964. A 1932 photograph of Charlie Chaplin in St. Moritz is also included.
