Man Ray Letters

Arne H. Ekstrom (1908-1996) was a notable New York City art collector, dealer and gallery owner. He was born in Stockholm, Sweden, on May 22, 1908 and moved to New York in the 1930s. In 1933, Mr. Ekstrom wed Parmenia Migel, who went on to be a prominent historian of ballet, and they had one son together named Nicolas. In the wake of World War II, Mr. Ekstrom joined the U.S. military and, upon release of confidential government files after his death, his family discovered that he specialized in strategic deception for the Allied powers. He continued to work for the United States government following WWII until 1955 when he returned to New York City immersing himself in the art world.

In 1959 in a joint deal with Paris gallery owner Daniel Cordier, Mr. Ekstrom opened the Cordier and Ekstrom Gallery on Madison Avenue in New York City, New York. Serving as the owner and director of the Cordier an Ekstrom Gallery in Manhattan for thirty-five years, Mr. Ekstrom opened the gallery to exhibitions of both established artists, such as Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray, and younger fringe talent, like Robert Ohnigian. He sought to build relationships not only with artists in the United States but also with artists across the Atlantic Ocean in Europe. Under Mr. Ekstrom’s management, Cordier an Ekstrom held a myriad of exhibitions demonstrating divergent and original postmodernist artists of the 20th century who had varying techniques and levels of prestige. Notably Mr. Ekstrom fostered a personal relationship with famous artist and photographer Man Ray (1890-1976). At one point in the Man Ray letters, Man Ray refers to Mr. Ekstrom as his “agent” of sorts. Mr. Ekstrom negotiated sales and lending of Man Ray’s art, and he coordinated and arranged exhibitions of Man Ray’s work inside and outside of the United States. They corresponded frequently about business, and Man Ray would even run concepts for artwork, photoprints, catalogs, and more by Mr. Ekstrom. Shortly before his passing in 1996, Mr. Arne Ekstrom gifted this collection of Man Ray’s correspondence to the Philadelphia Museum of Art archives in 1995.