Les Mains libres: Dessins de Man Ray, illustrés par les poèmes de Paul Éluard (Free Hands: Drawings illustrated by the poems of Paul Éluard)

This sizable binding is a notable example of Mary Reynolds’s skill and humor. Impressed along the spine is the title and artists’ names in silver, surrounded by smooth warm-tone leather. A pair of bisected women’s gloves interrupts the continuous feel of the cover. Cut vertically down the seam, the gloves are laid flush against the surface, nearly flat. Even the thumb has been so expertly pressed that it is nearly two dimensional. The gloves, left on the front cover and right on the back, are positioned where one would place their hands in order to open the book. The gesture compounds the meaning of the work as an art object, with Reynolds contributing her handiwork— quite literally—to augment the drawings of Man Ray and poems of Éluard.

Reynolds’s bookmaking artistry doesn’t stop at the onlay of the gloves. She utilized a technique called “doubleure,” in which the lining of a book is inlaid within the front and back covers. Conventionally a means to protect ornate illustrations from environmental degradation, here Reynolds chose a rough, sponge-like material that contrasts harshly against the silk used for the endpapers, creating a juxtaposition of textures.

With this binding, Reynolds may have been inspired by a Surrealist practice called an
"exquisite corpse", a drawing exercise that consists of passing a piece of paper between three or four artists. Each artist makes a unique image and then folds the paper in a specific way to hide their rendering. After the final artist contributes, the page is unfolded to reveal an entirely strange sequence of disjunctive figures and forms. The one of a kind sculptural adaptation of Les Mains began its existence as a set of drawings (by Man Ray) that were passed to a poet (Eluard), and then to a bookbinder (Reynolds). Each artist evolved the piece in a fashion reflective of their talents. In the process, an utterly unique product took form that reflects the friendship, humor and co-creation that characterized the artists’ social group.

This work is currently on view in Frida Kahlo’s Month in Paris: A Friendship with Mary Reynolds.