In this photograph, Ubac reimagines Penthesilea, the mythic Amazonian queen, through a complex process of darkroom manipulation. Using multiple solarizations and montages of his wife, Agi, and a friend, Ubac transformed a few negatives into a rhythmic frieze of intertwined figures. Inspired by ancient Greek reliefs, the image merges eroticism and violence, shadow and form. Chosen by Surrealism’s founder André Breton to accompany his writing in the Surrealist journal Minotaure, the work exemplifies how photography’s truthfulness can be bent into dreamlike distortion—revealing the archaic and unconscious forces beneath the visible.

Gallery label from

517: A Surreal Lens, 2025

Medium Gelatin silver print
Dimensions 15 5/8 × 11 11/16" (39.7 × 29.7 cm)
Credit Thomas Walther Collection. Abbott-Levy Collection funds, by exchange
Object number 1884.2001
Department Photography

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