Agui Ubac
Can I see it?
Not on view at present
Where is “Agui Ubac” now? Collection: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. Not on view at present. Checked October 12, 2026.
Chicago, United States
It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the work
Soon after Raoul Ubac moved to Paris in 1930, he met members of the Surrealist group and became interested in photography. Ubac darkened, lightened, montaged, or otherwise intervened in printing his experimental photographs, making dreamlike images that went against photography as a straight record of (waking) reality. The features of Ubac’s future wife, Agui, who also modeled for a number of his most famous photographic images (all titled Penthesilea, for the queen of the Amazons) appear here, exceptionally, to be unmanipulated. This “naturalness” is essential to the impression of an authentic inner state: either sleep or pleasure, or both at once.
Art Institute of ChicagoCC BY 4.0
Details
- Accession number
- 2012.549
What it shows
In the catalog
Sources
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Image: Art Institute of Chicago — © the artist or rights holder
![[Agui Ubac with Georgette and Rene Magritte], Raoul Ubac, 1935–1945](https://media.getty.edu/iiif/image/2c229cb9-5861-4e87-a7dc-59541ef090ac/full/!1200,1200/0/default.jpg)
![[Agui Ubac and Rene Magritte dancing], Raoul Ubac, 1935–1945](https://media.getty.edu/iiif/image/840de821-ff7b-484f-8dbc-c842289c1fdc/full/!1200,1200/0/default.jpg)
![Mannequin by [Kurt] Seligmann, Rodolphe Raoul Ubac, 1938](/api/img?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.artic.edu%2Fiiif%2F2%2Fbbd3284d-a3ca-62cb-9e52-87f44835e615%2Ffull%2F1686%2C%2F0%2Fdefault.jpg)
