by Man Ray
Kiki de Montparnasse rests her head on a table, eyes closed, beside a black wooden mask that she holds upright. Man Ray made the photograph in Paris in 1926, and Paris Vogue published it that May as Visage de nacre et masque d'ébène. The title Noire et blanche came two years later. The Museum of Modern Art in New York owns this print.
Kiki de Montparnasse lays her head flat on a table, turned toward us, with her eyes closed. Her short dark hair is slicked down, her eyebrows are thin drawn lines and her lips are painted dark. She looks asleep.
Beside her face stands a black wooden mask, balanced on its chin. Her hand reaches round from behind and holds the mask by its carved crest. The mask has a long oval face, half-closed eyes and a tiny mouth. The background is a plain grey, and the table is bare.
Man Ray built the picture from pairs. A pale face lies down and a black face stands up. Both have closed or lowered eyes, small closed mouths and smooth oval heads, and both throw soft shadows on the same table.
The J. Paul Getty Museum says the photograph invites us to contrast the two long faces. The title Noire et blanche plays on the two heads and on black-and-white photography itself. The J. Paul Getty Museum links the picture to the fashion for African art in 1920s Paris and to Man Ray's lifelong interest in masks.
The picture first appeared in the May 1926 issue of Paris Vogue. The caption was Visage de nacre et masque d'ébène, mother-of-pearl face and ebony mask. The magazine credited the mask to a Monsieur Georges Sakier.
The researchers Wendy A. Grossman and Steven Manford identified him as George Sakier, a junior art director at Vogue who had known Man Ray as a boy in Brooklyn. Their article appeared in the journal American Art in 2006. Christie's summarised their findings when it sold a print in 2017.
The title Noire et blanche came later, according to Christie's summary. The picture was reprinted under that name in 1928, in the Belgian journal Variétés and the French magazine Art et Décoration. Wendy A. Grossman and Steven Manford found no record of Man Ray using the title himself. He called it Kiki with African Mask, or something close.
Man Ray worked from his studio at 31 bis rue Campagne-Première in Montparnasse, and his prints of the image carry its stamp. Kiki de Montparnasse had been his partner and favourite model since late 1921. Two years earlier, she had posed for Le Violon d'Ingres.
He made more than one negative that day. The Centre Pompidou in Paris holds a nine-by-twelve-centimetre glass negative of the picture, which entered the collection in 1994 by dation, the French system of paying inheritance tax with works of art. The J. Paul Getty Museum owns a small print from the same session in which Kiki de Montparnasse sits up with her eyes open, the mask held against her cheek.
Man Ray reworked the image with great care. According to Christie's summary of the research by Wendy A. Grossman and Steven Manford, he retouched negatives and prints over and over, looking for the version he wanted.
The Museum of Modern Art's print, 17.1 by 22.5 centimetres, was given in 1941 by the collector James Thrall Soby. The museum showed it in 2014 in A World of Its Own, an exhibition about photographs made in the studio.
Another print went to the Paris couturier and collector Jacques Doucet. A pencil note says it was given to the couturière Suzanne Talbot in Paris on 15 October 1930. Signed and dated MAN RAY 26, that print sold at Christie's in Paris on 9 November 2017 for 2,688,750 euros.
Close reading
Up close, Noire et blanche is a picture about two faces. Kiki de Montparnasse lays her pale head on a table beside a black wooden mask, and Man Ray matches them feature by feature: closed eyes, small mouths, smooth ovals. He made it in Paris in 1926, and Vogue published it that May.
1.Two faces side by side
Kiki de Montparnasse lays her head flat on a table with her eyes closed. Beside her face stands a black wooden mask, upright on its chin. Her face is pale and lies sideways; the mask is dark and stands straight. The J. Paul Getty Museum says the picture invites us to contrast the two long faces.
2.Closed eyes
The eyes of Kiki de Montparnasse are shut, and her face is completely relaxed. She could be asleep, or only still for the camera. Her eyebrows look plucked and drawn back on as thin dark lines. The skin around her eyes is smooth and even, with hardly a line.
3.A drawn eyebrow
At this size the eyebrow is clearly a line of make-up, not hair. Under the eyebrow, the closed eyelid curves down to a fringe of fine lashes. The print holds even the lashes sharply. Man Ray focused with great care on this part of her face.
4.The eye nearest the table
The other eye of Kiki de Montparnasse lies closest to the table. The eye is closed like the first, under the same thin drawn brow. Her cheek presses onto the tabletop, and a soft shadow spreads out beneath her head. The dark hair at the left melts into the shadow.
5.Dark, sharply drawn lips
The lips of Kiki de Montparnasse are painted dark and shaped into a sharp little bow. In the black-and-white print the lipstick shows as a deep grey. Her lips are pressed together, like the small closed mouth of the mask. Because her head lies on its side, the mouth runs up and down instead of across.
6.Slicked black hair
The short dark hair of Kiki de Montparnasse is slicked flat against her head. Light catches a few glossy streaks, but most of the hair melts into the dark background. The tight, smooth hair turns her head into an oval. The oval of her head echoes the oval of the mask across the picture.
7.An ear and a small earring
Because her head lies on its side, the ear of Kiki de Montparnasse points up at the top of the head. The ear shows very pale against her dark hair. A small dark earring hangs from the ear. The earring is almost the only thing she wears in the picture.
8.The mask
The mask has a long oval face, a straight nose and heavy half-closed eyes. Its dark wood is polished so smoothly that highlights slide across it. Paris Vogue captioned the picture Visage de nacre et masque d'ébène: mother-of-pearl face and ebony mask. Christie's describes the mask as Baule, the style of a people of Côte d'Ivoire.
9.Eyes that answer hers
The mask's eyes are carved as two heavy lids, almost shut. Above them runs a raised ridge that dips in the middle over the nose. Small upright notches are cut into the dip; their meaning is not clear. The half-shut eyes of the mask answer the closed eyes of Kiki de Montparnasse beside them.
10.A tiny mouth
The mask's mouth is tiny and pushed forward. A row of pale specks sits along its lips. The specks could be carved teeth, or small chips in the wood; the photograph does not settle it. Below the mouth, the chin rests right on the table.
11.A carved crest like leaves
On top of the mask rises a crest of five rounded shapes, like leaves, feathers or a fanned hairstyle. Each shape is cut with fine parallel grooves that catch the light. The grooves are the only rough texture in a picture made of smooth surfaces. The fingertips of Kiki de Montparnasse rest on the crest at the right.
12.Her hand holds the mask upright
A hand curls over the top of the mask and holds it upright. The hand must belong to Kiki de Montparnasse, reaching round from behind. Without the hand the mask would topple over. Her fingers barely touch the carving.
13.A bare arm behind the mask
The bare arm of Kiki de Montparnasse comes in from the right and bends up behind the mask to hold it. Her arm and shoulder fill the space between the mask and the edge of the picture. The skin is lit softly, with no hard shadows. Fine white scratches on the surface of the print show up in this pale area.
14.A shoulder between the two heads
Between the two heads, a pale shape slopes away into the distance. The shape is the bare shoulder of Kiki de Montparnasse, well behind her face. Man Ray keeps the shoulder soft and out of focus, so it reads as a smooth pale wall. The black mask stands out sharply against it.
15.Two shadows on the table
The cheek of Kiki de Montparnasse and the chin of the mask rest on the same pale tabletop. Each throws a soft shadow across the table, and the two shadows run side by side. The shadows join the two heads the way their shapes do. The bare table is the only setting in the picture.
16.A plain grey backdrop
Behind everything is a plain grey backdrop that darkens toward the top. Man Ray gives the eye nothing to look at but the two faces. Thin white scratches and specks mark this part of the print. The scratches are marks on the old sheet itself, not part of the scene.
1921
Kiki de Montparnasse meets Man Ray in Paris and becomes his partner and model.
1926
Man Ray photographs Kiki de Montparnasse with a black wooden mask. More than one negative is made; the Centre Pompidou holds one.
May 1926
Published in Paris Vogue as Visage de nacre et masque d'ébène, the mask credited to Georges Sakier.
1928
Reprinted in Variétés and Art et Décoration under the title Noire et blanche.
1930
A print from Jacques Doucet's collection is given to the couturière Suzanne Talbot in Paris.
1941
James Thrall Soby gives the Museum of Modern Art its print.
1994
The glass negative enters the Centre Pompidou's collection.
2017
The print from Jacques Doucet's collection sells at Christie's in Paris for 2,688,750 euros.
The Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53 Street, New York, NY 10019, United States
A photograph on paper, shown in rotation. Not on view in September 2026; check the museum's page before a visit.
Plan your visit on the museum’s official website (opens in a new tab)Kiki de Montparnasse, born Alice Prin, Man Ray's partner and favourite model in the 1920s. The J. Paul Getty Museum names her in its record of a print from the same session.
A carved wooden mask in the style of the Baule people of Côte d'Ivoire, as Christie's describes it. Paris Vogue credited it in 1926 to a Monsieur Georges Sakier, whom researchers identify as George Sakier, a junior art director at the magazine.
Black and white. The J. Paul Getty Museum reads the title as a play on the two heads and on black-and-white photography. The title first appeared in 1928; Vogue had called the picture Visage de nacre et masque d'ébène.
The Museum of Modern Art in New York owns this print, object number 132.1941. Photographs are shown in rotation, and it was not on view in September 2026. The Centre Pompidou holds the negative, and the J. Paul Getty Museum holds a print of another pose.
Yes. Man Ray died on 18 November 1976, so the photograph is protected in the European Union until the end of 2046. The Man Ray Trust licenses it through the Artists Rights Society and ADAGP. The copy shown here is reduced and used under fair use for commentary.
Depicts · 1926
The Centre Pompidou's record of the glass negative names the sitter as Kiki de Montparnasse (Alice Ernestine Prin) and titles the image Kiki (Alice Prin), Noire et blanche. The J. Paul Getty Museum names her as Kiki (Alice Prin) on its print of another pose from the same session, and Christie's names her in its 2017 lot essay. She lies with her head on a table, eyes closed, holding a black wooden mask upright beside her face.
The sources below include collection records, catalogues, scholarly research, and primary materials that informed this page. They document Noire et blanche, its making, and its place in cultural history.
The print described here: date, medium, size, credit line, copyright notice and the 2014 exhibition, and the image the close-reading views were cropped from.
A small print of another pose from the same session, with the J. Paul Getty Museum's reading of the two faces and the title, and the rue Campagne-Première stamp on its back.
The glass negative of the picture, nine by twelve centimetres, acquired by dation in 1994.
The print from Jacques Doucet's collection and its sale. The lot essay is Christie's summary of Wendy A. Grossman and Steven Manford, "Unmasking Man Ray's Noire et blanche", American Art 20, no. 2 (2006), pp. 134–147: the Vogue caption, George Sakier, the later title and the retouching.
The Centre Pompidou's Man Ray holdings, cited for the French credit line © Man Ray Trust / Adagp, Paris.
Biography, cited for the Paris studio years.
These references provide the documented foundation for this work's history and interpretation. Claim-level citations remain attached to the specific claims they support.
Explore more resources
