Raoul Ubac valuation
Surrealist photographer who burned his own negatives, then spent forty years carving slate.
Raoul Ubac was born at Malmedy in 1910, in territory that was German at his birth and Belgian by his adolescence.
What a work by Raoul Ubac is worth
Send photographs and whatever paperwork came with it. The first question is what the work actually is — edition or unique, when, and in what condition — because everything else follows from the answer. A valuation is free, made online from the photographs you send, and it commits you to nothing. We act for sellers across the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States.
Write to info@whitebankfineart.co.uk, or start below.
Bio
Raoul Ubac was born at Malmedy in 1910, in territory that was German at his birth and Belgian by his adolescence. He joined the Surrealists in Paris in the 1930s and made photographs by techniques he pushed to the edge of destruction — solarisation, burning, and brulage, in which the negative is heated until the emulsion melts and the image begins to dissolve. He abandoned photography during the war and turned to slate: incising and carving low reliefs into stone from the Ardennes, which occupied him for the rest of his life, alongside stained glass and tapestry for churches. He died in 1985.
Two separate markets under one name. The 1930s Surrealist photographs are historically the most important part of the output, are scarce, and turn entirely on whether a print is a vintage one; later prints of the same images exist and are valued very differently. The slate reliefs are unique, heavy, and chip at the edges, and a damaged edge cannot be made good. There is a substantial output of works on paper, gouaches and prints from the post-war decades, which are the accessible part of the market.
At a glance
- Born
- 31 August 1910, Malmedy
- Died
- 24 March 1985, Dieudonné
- Movement
- School of Paris
More on Wikipedia.
The Sorbonne, Minotaure and Dieudonne
Ubac came to Paris in 1928 and enrolled at the Sorbonne to study literature, then switched to art in Montparnasse, where he fell in with the Surrealists. He photographed for the magazine Minotaure, and in 1937 made Tête de mannequin, a photograph of a mannequin made by André Masson.
Photography was his main work from 1934 to 1942. He died at Dieudonne, in the Oise, in March 1985.
Whitebank Fine Art is an art advisory and gallery, not an auction house, and is not affiliated with any auction house or with the artist, their estate or their representatives. This page describes the range we advise on. Nothing here is investment advice.
