Mannequin in the Studio

"Mannequin in the Studio" of 1936 depicts the artist's workspace in a mode of playful surrealism — the mannequin as a figure that mimics human form without human presence, standing in for the model in a studio where making images of the human body was the constant activity. Onchi was alert to the philosophical dimensions of this substitution: the mannequin as a representation of a body, which the print then represents again, creating a chain of representation that his composition makes visible. The studio setting grounds this meditation in the specificity of his own artistic practice.