Mary Reynolds had business cards made that were in all capital letters and simply read: MARY REYNOLDS / RELIURE / 24 R. HALLÉ / PARIS XIV. It’s unclear why she wanted them, since her bookbinding shop was mostly for herself. The address was semi-accurate, as Reynolds had a place there but also lived down the street in a two-story house at 14 rue Hallé with a big backyard that accommodated Brancusi sculptures, a gang of cats, and nightly gatherings of Surrealists.
Most days, her partner Marcel Duchamp was there too. Together, they decorated 14 rue Hallé with an odd collection of road maps, dangly earrings, pieces of glass, and string. Duchamp would later describe Reynolds as “a great figure in her modest ways,” noting their more than 20-year on-and-off relationship and her witness to the flourishing arts scene in interwar Paris.
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From the moment Reynolds (1891–1950) moved from New York to Paris in 1921, the eccentric American surrounded herself with artists and writers. This was a stark contrast to her straitlaced upbringing in Minneapolis. Reynolds always seemed to crave something more, attending Vassar College and moving to Greenwich Village with her husband to be part of the bohemian scene. Unfortunately, her husband’s untimely death during World War I led Reynolds to cross the Atlantic to be closer to him.
Gentle and generous, Reynolds quickly made friends in Paris, including photographer Man Ray. „She was a sort of fairy godmother, receiving all who came to her,“ Ray wrote in his autobiography. Despite her welcoming nature, she was often taken advantage of due to misconceptions about her financial status. Reynolds sustained herself on a war widow pension and a small trust from her parents.
„She was the only person in Bohemia with any money, and yet she was always broke because she lent it or gave it all away the minute it arrived from America,“ wrote art collector Peggy Guggenheim, another close friend of Reynolds.
Reynolds’s home was filled with art by her friends, including works by Jean Arp, Alexander Calder, and Yves Tanguy. She even hosted Frida Kahlo, offering her a room and nursing her back to health during a visit to Paris in 1939.
Reynolds had a talent for building a cultural community and eventually sought her own creative outlet by learning the art of bookbinding. She studied under bookbinder Pierre Legrain and developed her avant-garde style, focusing on Dada and Surrealist publications written by her friends.
She used unique materials to transform books into singular objects, creating bindings divorced from classical teachings with a surrealistic and fantastical approach. Her work was innovative and connected to the texts she bound.
Reynolds used a visual pun in her binding of Paul Éluard’s Les mains libres (Free Hands, 1937) by attaching gloves to the front and back covers, symbolically „freeing“ the reader’s hands. Some of her other bindings were more cryptic, with their meanings only becoming clear after reading the texts.
Reynolds collaborated with artists like Man Ray, Jean Cocteau, and Marcel Duchamp on various bookbinding projects. She even joined the French Resistance during World War II, risking her life to help those fleeing Nazi persecution.
In 1942, Reynolds escaped Paris as the Gestapo watched her house, eventually making her way to New York. She returned to Paris after the war ended, but her health declined and she passed away in 1950 with Duchamp by her side.
Duchamp helped preserve Reynolds’s collection of bound books, which was eventually gifted to the Art Institute of Chicago. Her collection includes works by Surrealist artists and serves as a diary of her life in Paris.
Despite her close relationships with renowned artists of her time, Reynolds remains relatively unknown. Her collection at the Art Institute of Chicago showcases her artistry and her connections to the creative community of interwar Paris.