Inspired by “Larmes” by Man Ray
© Man Ray 2015 Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY / ADAGP, Paris 2021.
American artist Man Ray (1890-1976) must have been a fan of the melodramatic, as his photograph Larmes (1932) resembles a black-and-white film still, cropped to a close-up of crying eyes. Yet the woman’s tears are clearly artificial, made by placing small glass orbs on her cheeks. Some scholars connect the work to Ray’s biography, as it was made shortly after a break up with his then assistant and lover, Lee Miller. The photograph perhaps reflects his own conflicting emotions around the event.