Solarization: Re-branding of the Sabatier Effect
The Guardian article asserts that Lee Miller “discovered” solarization, but that Man Ray received the credit. Solarization (The Sabatier or pseudo-Sabatier effect) is simply the exposing of a developing photograph to light during the development process. The final product results in positive and negative features. The effect had been defined and documented by Armand Sabatier as early as 1862, although others have characterized the phenomenon more than a decade earlier. This storyline appeared in Lives, but actually comes from Lee herself, most prominently, in an interview with Mario Amaya (1).
The claim in Lives and subsequent publications vary between Lee as inventor, co-inventor or a re-inventor but in all events, the assertion is incorrect. “Solarization” is merely Man Ray’s re-branding of the well-known photographic phenomenon known as the “Sabatier effect”. Or more properly, in the dark room setting, the “pseudo-Sabatier effect”.
Lee’s claim that she discovered solarization by accidentally switching on a light in a dark room is simply evidence of Lee’s lack of knowledge about photographic technique and history. Aside from the Sabatier effect having already been documented half a century earlier, one can only imagine the countless number of times that photographers exposed film or prints prematurely by accidently switching on a light or opening a dark room door.
Lee is clear in the Amaya article, a as well as another article in Lilliput magazine, October 1941, that Man Ray experimented with the development of the technique for marketing. Ironically, Lee herself is the origin of giving Man Ray credit for its use and popularity. Man Ray, to be clear, also did not think much of Lee’s “contribution” in a 1935 interview with William Bird, ‘Turns New Trick in Photography” New York Sun Times.
Lee as “inventor” is simply not true. In this instance, the “red flag” is the absurdity of accepting that Lee invented solarization by accidentally switching on a light, which begs the question, why researchers and writers have maintained this story line without lifting the hood to see what is underneath.
Let’s Lift the Hood
In Lives, Antony Penrose takes the following quote from Lee’s 1975 interview with Mario Amaya in Art in America and then sandwiches it between his contention that the development of the Man Ray Technique by Man Ray was actually a collaboration or “artistic association” between Lee Miller and Man Ray:
“One of their best-known joint achievements was the development of the ‘solarization’ technique…
Something crawled across my foot in the darkroom and I let out a yell and turned on the light. I never did find out what it was, a mouse or what. Then I quickly realized that the film was totally exposed: there in the development tanks, ready to be taken out, were a dozen practically fully developed negatives of a nude against a black background. Man Ray grabbed them, put them in the hypo and looked at them later.… the unexposed parts of the negative, which had been the black background, had been exposed by this sharp light that had been turned on and they had developed and came right up to the edge of the white nude body.…It was all very well my making that one accidental discovery, but then Man had to set about how to control it and make it come out exactly the way he wanted to each time.
The results are the hallmark of their artistic association.” (Emphasis added) (2).
Although this seems to be a “footprint” set by Lee herself, it is not because the “footprint” is not what Lee actually said, but rather, Antony Penrose converting Lee’s thoughtless impulsive reaction into “one of their best known achievements…” and the “…hallmark of their artistic association.” There is no “artistic association” between Lee’s discovery of a phenomena that had been documented since 1863 and Man Ray’s development of a technique to control the Sabatier Effect in 1929. Nor is there any “achievement” rightly attributed to her participation, such as it was.
The “accident” was a feckless reaction without thought, plan or purpose. The “Man Ray Technique” on the other hand, was the result of a creative process that had “vision” as its starting point followed by hours, days or weeks of experimentation, trial and error and creative effort carefully throughout, planned and with definite purpose.
The “accident” was merely incidental to the creation of the “Man Ray Technique”, and it was certainly not an act of collaboration to achieve a goal. An “accident” is clearly distinct from the creative process and, as such, it is irrelevant, whether light entered the darkroom because Lee turned on a switch, or whether a mouse ran over her foot, or a friend entered the darkroom, or the door swung out because of a loose latch. The “who” and “what” simply doesn’t matter.
The ‘when” is also of no significance. The fact that the “accident” was contemporaneous in time to the initiation of the creative process is also of no importance. If Man Ray walked into the darkroom two days after the “accident”, observed the damaged photo and initiated the creative process, the same conclusion would apply as to who developed the technique. The “Lee Miller co-inventor” argument has been around a long time, but it is no more compelling than asserting that the Universal Law of Gravity was developed by Sir Isaac Newton in collaboration with an apple that fell from a tree. This collaboration constitutes one of their “best known achievements”?
These are two events with two beginnings and two ends and they are separated by the presence or absence of human ingenuity. The “Man Ray Technique” was the creation of Man Ray, and Man Ray alone, and it was a creative process that started and ended with his vision and creative effort. The Sabatier effect was not invented by anyone (Lee or otherwise), its existence was discovered by someone and documented by Sabatier. The “Man Ray Technique” was a process that he created.
Alternatively, if one wants to continue to assert that the accident should be bootstrapped into the creative process, the actual proximate cause of the accident, according to Lee, was the mouse (or whatever) that ran over her foot. This “but for” argument fails because an accident is not limited to human error and the first link in the chain of causation is the mouse. “But for” the mouse, would Man Ray not have created anything? The mouse not only preceded Lee in the chain of causation, it contributed just as much thought, plan and process to the creative process as Lee. This example is an apt illustration as to why there is no nexus between thoughtless accident and the creative process that results in invention (e.g. the apple and Newton) other than incidental happenstance that, for whatever reasons, spark human ingenuity.
The foregoing sounds very critical of Lee and her story. It is absolutely not for the simple reason that Lee is not lying or attempting to “gild the lily” but Lives does. Lee acknowledged full credit to Man Ray for development of the technique throughout her life and there is absolute consistently in Lee and Man Ray’s version of the history except for Lee mistakenly believing that she discovered the Sabatier Effect and compounding her factual and historic error by call it “solarization.”
In her interview with Amaya, Lee states that she alone “discovered accidentally” solarization but she describes the Sabatier Effect. By any analysis, she did not solely discover the Sabatier Effect and the Man Ray Technique was not discovered, it was created. Lee did observe the Sabatier Effect but she did not know what it was. In the same Amaya interview, Lee stated that her father, Theodore, did not teach her photography so Lee’s simple confusion between the Sabatier Effect with solarization is a forgivable mistake for someone whose only experience was as a photographic intern for a few weeks or months in the fall of 1929.
Whether it was in her 1975 Amaya interview or in her 1941 Lilliput article, Lee gives solo credit to Man Ray for the creative process. Man Ray consistently says (e.g. 1935 interview with William Bird) that it was a commonplace darkroom accident and that, in trying to save a photograph he turned to the creative process. In other words, the stories agree. There is nothing intentionally wrong with Lee’s position. She did not claim anything more than what she did – caused light to enter the darkroom. She did not claim to have contributed to the creative process or collaborate with Man Ray on it. Only Lives introduces the concept that there was a collaboration. Thus, the gild is again applied to the lily, substituting a narrative of accomplishment by somehow equating accident with invention. Antony Penrose effectively bootstraps Lee into the creative process by simply saying so and thus created a “footprint” that has been followed for more than four decades. This is consistently the case.
If one follows the articles posted in this forum, it will be noted that Lee’s statements are never challenged as false, nor will they be because her veracity is seldom at issue. Although Lee frequently name drops, is quick to talk about herself and perhaps was not honest with her lovers, she, as an original source, is reliable. By way of illustration, consider that Lee never said a word about Harold dying in front of her or its impact, nor Picasso commenting on her being the “Femme Soldat”, nor Condé Nast saving her, nor the Lapape illustration on the cover of Vogue, nor her being a successful Vogue model, nor Nimet’s suicide, and so on and so forth, This all comes from the publication of Lives in 1985 and the ones that follow.
Footnotes:
(1) Amaya, Mario My Man Ray Art News In America May/June 1975 (page 54)
(2) Amaya, Mario My Man Ray Art News In America May/June 1975 (page 56/7)