La Fortune III

Man Ray (in 1946 (1973))

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Specifications

Title	La Fortune III
Material and technique	Wood, metal, paper and paint
Object type	Multiple > Three-dimensional object > Art object
Location	This object is in storage

Dimensions	Height 47,8 cm Width 20 cm Depth 15 cm
Artists	Artist: Man Ray Publisher: Sergio Tosi
Accession number	BEK 1937 a-b (MK)
Credits	Aankoop Stichting Fonds Willem van Rede. In permanent bruikleen van de Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed, 2014
Department	Modern Art
Acquisition date	2014
Creation date	in 1946 (1973)
Collector	Collector / W. van Rede
Entitled parties	© Man Ray Trust / ADAGP, c/o Pictoright Amsterdam 2018
Provenance	Artist’s proof from an edition of 9 copies and 6 artist’s proofs, published by Sergio Tosi, Milan 1973; The Mayor Gallery, London 2014
Exhibitions	Rotterdam 2017b
Internal exhibitions	Surrealism and Beyond (2016) Collectie - surrealisme (2017)
External exhibitions	Dal nulla al sogno (2018) Surrealist Art - Masterpieces from Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (2021) Dalí, Magritte, Man Ray and Surrealism. Highlights from Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (2023) Only the Marvelous is Beautiful (2022) A Surreal Shock – Masterpieces from Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (2021) A Surreal Shock. Masterpieces from Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (2023)
Research	Show research A dream collection - Surrealism in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
Literature	Schwarz 1977, pp. 210-11, cat. no. 339; Man Ray/Martin 1983, p. 152, cat. no. 102; Man Ray/J. Man Ray/Foresta 1988, pp. 282-84*
Material	Metal > Inorganic material > Material > Material and technique Wood > Vegetable material > Organic material > Material > Material and technique Paper > Vegetable material > Organic material > Material > Material and technique Paint > Artist's material > Material > Material and technique
Object	Multiple > Three-dimensional object > Art object

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Entry catalogue A dream collection - Surrealism in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen

Author: Marijke Peyser

Man Ray, 'La fortune' (Fortune), 1938, oil on canvas, 60.2 x 73.2 cm. New York, Whitney Museum of American Art

Man Ray left France immediately before the outbreak of the Second World War and settled in Hollywood. In 1946 he made La fortune III, which means both ‘chance’ and ‘fortune’. In his autobiography Self Portrait (1963) the artist explains how he made the object, which represents both meanings, for a lecture he gave in New York in 1946: ‘I was invited to give a talk on Surrealism. The only preparation I made for this was to construct an object that would demonstrate a Surrealist act. It consisted of a cardboard lottery wheel with its numbered segments and fixed arrow, mounted on a vertical board with a roll of toilet paper at the base. As the members filed into the gallery, each one was given a slip of folded toilet paper, bearing a number: there were, of course, many blanks as the number of people exceeded the figures on the wheel. … At the end of my conference I would turn the wheel of my contraption … (I) concluded by saying that brevity was one of its virtues, whatever other reservations one might have on the subject. … I gave a flip to the wheel of my object; it made a few revolutions and stopped with the arrow pointing to 15. A hand shot up in the audience holding the piece of paper with the number; I requested the bearer to step up front. He stood beside me while I spoke again for another minute, saying that after this dramatic moment for which everyone had been waiting, I’d be glad to answer any questions. Then, lifting my object with the lottery wheel, I handed it to the winner, saying this was a concrete example of Surrealism. The object bore the title: La fortune.’^[1]

The object had played its part, passed into the hands of another owner and was lost. There was, though, a photograph of it. In 1973, more than a quarter of a century later, Man Ray had a replica made in an edition of fifteen, produced by the publisher Sergio Tosi in Milan. The object owned by Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is one of the ‘épreuves d’artiste’ that were made for the artist himself. In the literature the work is known as La fortune III.^[2] Man Ray had already made two oil paintings with the same title, La fortune (1938) and La fortune II (1941). Both canvases depict a sloping billiard table of vast proportions, stretching to the horizon in a desert-like landscape. Man Ray explained the context to his biographer Arturo Schwarz: ‘I always wanted to have a billiard table in my garden. There is always an idea behind my paintings. The idea is interesting, not the image.’^[3] ‘Chance’ continued to inspire the artist after 1946. His assemblage La fortune (1952) consists of a toy billiard table with a necklace on it. The necklace can take on different shapes when the little billiard table is moved.

These works show that Man Ray, and most of the other Surrealists with him, approached the creative process like a game, with plenty of room for chance.^[4] For Man Ray la fortune was une fortune: chance is worth a fortune, a circumstance that has to be grasped in a positive way.^[5]

Footnotes

[1] Man Ray 1963, pp. 357-58.

[2] Schwarz 1980, p. 232.

[3] Ibid., p. 73.

[4] See http://whitney.org/WatchAndListen/Tag?context=painting&play_id=470 (consulted 17 January 2017).

[5] Schwarz 1980, p. 233.

Show research A dream collection - Surrealism in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen

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