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His photographs, paintings, drawings, sculptures, films, and even a chess set were included in three landmark early exhibitions: Cubism and Abstract Art (1936); Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism (1936–37), for which one of his rayographs served as the catalogue’s cover image; and Photography, 1839–1937 (1937).
- Summary of Man Ray
- Accomplishments
- Biography of Man Ray
Man Ray's career is distinctive above all for the success he achieved in both the United States and Europe. First maturing in the center of American modernism in the 1910s, he made Paris his home in the 1920s and 1930s, and in the 1940s he crossed the Atlantic once again, spending periods in New York and Hollywood. His art spanned painting, sculptu...
Although he matured as an abstract painter, Man Ray eventually disregarded the traditional superiority painting held over photography and happily moved between different forms. Dada and Surrealism...For Man Ray, photography often operated in the gap between art and life. It was a means of documenting sculptures that never had an independent life outside the photograph, and it was a means of ca...André Breton once described Man Ray as a 'pre-Surrealist', something which accurately describes the artist's natural affinity for the style. Even before the movement had coalesced, in the mid 1920s...Childhood
Man Ray was born as Emmanuel Radnitzky in 1890 to a Russian-Jewish immigrant family in Philadelphia. His tailor father and seamstress mother soon relocated the family to the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, where Ray spent most of his childhood. His family changed their surname to Ray due to the fear of anti-Semitism. His name evolved to Man Ray after shortening his nickname, Manny, to Man. He kept his family background secret for most of his career, though the influence of hi...
Early Training
In his studio at his parents' house, he worked hard towards becoming a painter while taking odd jobs as a commercial artist. He familiarized himself with the world of art by frequenting art galleries and museums in New York City and became attracted to contemporary avant-garde art from Europe. In 1912, he enrolled in the Ferrer School and began developing as a serious artist. While studying at this school that was founded by libertarian ideals, he met his first influential teachers and artist...
Mature Period
Ray lived for the next 18 years in the Montparnasse where he met important thinkers and artists, including James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Jean Cocteau, and Antonin Artaud. He also met a famous performer, Kiki of Montparnasse, who became his lover and frequent subject in his work for six years. His most influential works such as Indestructible Object (or Object to Be Destroyed), Noire et Blanche (Black and White), Glass Tears, and most of his Rayographs, as well as his fashion photography for Vo...
- American
- August 27, 1890
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- November 18, 1976
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Feb 21, 2024 · Born in Philadelphia, Emmanuel Radnitsky grew up in New Jersey and became a commercial artist in New York in the 1910s. He began to sign his name Man Ray in 1912, although his family did not change its surname to Ray until the 1920s. He initially taught himself photography in order to reproduce his own works of art, which included paintings and ...
Flying Dutchman. Man Ray American. 1920. On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 911. The painting Flying Dutchman originates from an early photograph Man Ray made of sheets on a clothesline in New York called Moving Sculpture. The painting’s title suggests that the image reminded him of ship sails and, more specifically, of Richard Wagner ...
In 1915, Man Ray had his first solo show of paintings and drawings after he had taken up residence at an art colony in Grantwood, New Jersey, across the Hudson River from New York City. His first proto-Dada object, an assemblage titled Self-Portrait , was exhibited the following year.
The Collection. Modern and Contemporary Art. The Mime. Man Ray American. 1916. On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 911. The Mime belongs to a series of early experimental compositions that anticipate Man Ray’s contributions to the international Dada movement in the late 1910s and the 1920s.
The Collection. Modern and Contemporary Art. Obstruction. Man Ray American. 1920/1961. On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 911. Man Ray worked in a wide range of media, including photography, painting, and sculpture, often blurring the boundaries between these practices.
