Anyone familiar with this Babe Ruth Postcard Issue?

[EddieP]

Here’s my thoughts: Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp were part of the Dada/ Surrealist art movement. Duchamp was the dude that exhibited a urinal in an art show. Man Ray was the guy who photographed a lady with perfectly circular tear drops. Google Man Ray and Marcel Duchamps and you’ll get a better idea of what they did.

But to put it simply, their type of art was more akin to the type of stuff that you’d see in the strip cards.That photo of Ruth is realistic and doesn’t fit into anything either one of them will do. I don’t think the PC came from their studio.

I am not familiar at all with the stampbox on that PC so I can’t put a date on it.

I’ll go out on the line and say SGC got it wrong. But that’s just my $0.02.

[tkd]

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. I do remember the post card being discussed on here before and couldn't find the original post. Glad you found it. Will be interesting to hear the conclusion to this if we get one.

[EddieP]

From Wiki regarding Man Ray:
“ Man Ray abandoned conventional painting to involve himself with Dada, a radical anti-art movement. He published two Dadaist periodicals, that each only had one issue, The Ridgefield Gazook (1915) and TNT (1919), the latter co-edited by Adolf Wolff and Mitchell Dawson.[13][14] He started making objects and developed unique mechanical and photographic methods of making images. For the 1918 version of Rope Dancer, he combined a spray-gun technique with a pen drawing. Like Duchamp, he worked with readymades—ordinary objects that are selected and modified. His Gift readymade (1921) is a flatiron with metal tacks attached to the bottom, and Enigma of Isidore Ducasse[15] is an unseen object (a sewing machine) wrapped in cloth and tied with cord. Aerograph (1919), another work from this period, was done with airbrush on glass.[16]”


From Wiki regarding Marcel Duchamp:
“ Duchamp created the Société Anonyme in 1920, along with Katherine Dreier and Man Ray. This was the beginning of his lifelong involvement in art dealing and collecting. The group collected modern art works, and arranged modern art exhibitions and lectures throughout the 1930s.

By this time Walter Pach, one of the coordinators of the 1913 Armory Show, sought Duchamp's advice on modern art. Beginning with Société Anonyme, Dreier also depended on Duchamp's counsel in gathering her collection, as did Arensberg. Later Peggy Guggenheim, Museum of Modern Art directors Alfred Barr and James Johnson Sweeney consulted with Duchamp on their modern art collections and shows.‘

Looking at a previous post by pencil1974 the PRC poststamp was used by the Phot Roto Company in 1910-1917.

Again this postcard of Ruth is a very conventional photo. There are no embellishments added to this postcards to make it absurd ( e.g. drawing a mustache on Ruth, drawing a bseball in the picture etc). I am very skeptical that is was produced by the Societe Anonyme in NYC. Based on the poststamp box Ruth should be wearing a RedSox uniform. I believed “ Societe Anonyme” was added to the postcard in order to establish the date to 1920.

[BeanTown]

I’m on the fence on this one. It uses an older post card back which is printed on and a current picture for 1920. Has there been more of these cards found?

[Leon]

Originally Posted by beantown

i’m on the fence on this one. It uses an older post card back which is printed on and a current picture for 1920. Has there been more of these cards found?

+1
.

[glchen]

The card ended up hammering at $9,300 at REA.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by glchen

The card ended up hammering at $9,300 at REA.

A stunning price for an inconclusive, from all I can tell, postcard. Leap of faith or did I miss something?
.