586 - Pierre Molinier* (Agen 1900 - 1976 Bordeaux)

Pierre Molinier* (Agen 1900 - 1976 Bordeaux) Reclining nude study, late 1960s vintage gelatin silver print 12,6 x 17,6 cm verso notations in pencil SCHÄTZPREIS / ESTIMATE € 500 - 1200 STARTPREIS / STARTING PRICE € 500 Pierre Molinier (1900–1976) was a French painter, photographer, and object artist whose work ranks among the most radical manifestations of European Surrealism. In his photographs and collages, he staged his own body alongside masks, wigs, corsets, stockings, and artificial limbs within complex erotic compositions. Through layering, photomontage, and reflections, he created hybrid images of the body in which identity, gender, and desire deliberately merge. Molinier’s obsessive engagement with fetishism, nude photography, and self-staging gave rise to a visual world situated between dream, eroticism, and Surrealist fantasy. André Breton recognized the significance of his work early on, publishing Molinier’s photographs in 1965 in the Surrealist journal Le Surréalisme, même. Molinier’s work is situated within the context of Surrealism and shares common ground with Claude Cahun regarding the photographic construction of identity and gender. While Cahun had already explored masking, role-playing, and androgynous self-portraits in the 1920s and 1930s, Molinier radicalized these strategies through the use of fetish objects, nude photography, and photographic montage. Later art history sees similar themes addressed by Jürgen Klauke and Ron Athey, whose works also focus on the body, sexuality, gender identity, and social norms. Bridging Surrealism, performance art, body art, and experimental photography, Molinier developed a highly personal visual language that conceives of the photographed body not as a fixed identity, but as a construct capable of transformation and staging. PLEASE NOTE: The purchase price consists of the highest bid plus the buyer's premium, sales tax and, if applicable, the fee of artists resale rights and platform fee. In the case of normal taxation (marked ° at the estimate), a premium of 24% is added to the highest bid. The mandatory sales tax is added to the sum of the highest bid, the buyer's premium and platform fee. This amounts to 13% for paintings, drawings, graphic works and sculptures and 20% for photographs and all other items. The buyer's premium amounts to 28% in case of differential taxation. The sales tax is included in the differential taxation.