Man Ray and Juliet Browner and Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning Have Double Wedding in October 1946 and Rays Take Trip To Paris in 1947 Just Months After Black Dahlia Murder

February 8, 2023
Birch Bay, Washington

Man Ray and Juliet Browner (top) and Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning (bottom)
celebrate October 25, 1946, double marriages in Beverly Hills, California.
The photo was taken on that date by famed portrait photographer Florence Homolka 
Los Angeles records show they were married on October 23, 1946.

Critics of my investigation have claimed for decades that Man Ray did not leave Los Angeles until 1951, some four years after the brutal murder of Elizabeth “Black Dahlia” Short that occurred on January 15, 1947.

Recent documented records prove otherwise. While I have yet to discover their actual departure date from Los Angeles, travel records show that Man Ray and Juliet returned from Paris, France via TWA Flight 84717 arriving in New York on  September 17, 1947.  (Making an educated guess I would estimate the Rays left LA sometime in June 1947, likely for the expressed purpose of attending their good friend Marcel Duchamp’s “Le Surrealisme en 1947 Exhibition’ in Paris, France which was on display in July-August 1947. See below for further details.)

(Graphic by author Robert Sadler)

On January 15, 1947 LAPD detectives responded to the “dump site” (not actual original crime scene) and photographed victim’s posed and tortured body, bisected at the waist. The right breast had been surgically removed and was not recovered at the location and its whereabouts was never discovered.
As detailed in Black Dahlia Avenger I, II and III strong linkage and evidence that the crime was committed by Dr. George Hodel.  Further,  that these close friends Man Ray, Juliet Man Ray, William Copely, and most probably Marcel Duchamp all KNEW of the crime and that their friend, Dr. Hodel committed it as his ultimate “surreal masterpiece.”

A few months after the January 1947  “Black Dahlia” occurred Marcel Duchamp created his “Please Touch” art object, (a surgically bisected woman’s breast) and it became the cover piece for his exhibition in Paris in July/August of the same year.

Marcel Duchamp and Enrico Donati – Priere de toucher (Please Touch)
Paris Exhibition July-August 1947

Victim Elizabeth “Black Dahlia” Short

Coroner’s Office                                       Crime scene, Los Angeles

The 2023 asking price is $50,000 for the original 1947 publication with foam breast on the cover.
The volume includes contributions by: Dorothea Tanning, Max Ernst, Henry Miller (all personal friends/acquaintances of Dr. George Hill Hodel)

This new documentation clearly shows that Man Ray and his new wife, Juliet traveled to Paris, France in the weeks or months preceding his good friend Marcel Duchamp’s exhibition and returned shortly after the exhibition closed in August 1947.  Included in the Duchamp exhibition were artworks created by both Dorothea Tanning and her new husband, Max Ernst. While it would seem likely that they also traveled to Paris to view the exhibit, documentation has yet to be found confirming my suspicions.

Here is a short bio/obituary on Max Ernst’s death at age 85. Ernst was married four times, including to art collector, Peggy Guggenheim who helped Ernst come to America in 1940. (Same year  that Man Ray arrived in the United States.)

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