Dreams of Desire 13 (Serene Beauty)

Renee Jacobi-J.A Boiffard 1930

This stunning photograph of a serene beauty fully captures the belief in the transcendence of dreaming that all Surrealists shared . At first glance she appears to be underwater, after a quick double take it is apparent that she is rather soaring through the clouds. Or could it be that she is in fact laid out on a morgue table? But no, she is sleeping (we can be relatively sure as one can be in dealing with the Surreal), however that covers any reality you care to choose.

J.A Boiffard was Man Ray’s assistant from 1924 to 1929. His Parisian photographs were chosen to illustrate Andre Breton’s Nadja. However after his expulsion from the Surrealists, Boiffard contributed to Un Cadavre, a pamphlet that in no uncertain terms castigated Breton and his leadership of the movement. Boiffard then allied himself with the renegade Surrealists grouped around Georges Bataille and was the in-house photographer for Bataille’s Documents. His photographs illustrating Bataille’s article Big Toe are disturbing in an most uncanny way.