(based on "20th Century Photography-Museum Ludwig Cologne")
Raoul Ubac
(b Malmédy, 31 Aug 1910; d 24
March 1985).
Belgian painter, sculptor and photographer, active in France. He
originally intended to become a waterways and forestry inspector. His
interest in art was aroused when he made his first visit to Paris in
1928 and met several artists, including Otto Freundlich. After returning
to Malmédy he read the Manifeste du Surréalisme (1924) by André
Breton. In 1930 he settled in Paris and made contact with the Surrealist
group, attending the first showing of Luis Buñuel’s film L’Age d’or
(1931). He attended the Faculté des Lettres of the Sorbonne briefly but
soon left to frequent the studios of Montparnasse. About 1933–4 he
attended the Ecole des Arts Appliqués for more than a year, studying
mainly drawing and photography. In the course of a visit to Austria and
the Dalmatian coast in 1933, he visited the island of Hvar where he made
some assemblages of stones, which he drew and photographed, for example
Dalmatian Stone (1933).
