Man Ray (Born Emmanuel Radnitzky) was born in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on August 27th in 1890 and he died on November 18th in 1976.
He was an American visual artist who spent most of his life in Paris, France. He was a noteworthy contributor to the Dada and Surrealist movements, although he never officially or directly contributed, instead working in the background or through others. He created pieces of work through a variety of media, but considered himself predominately as a painter, although he was most famously known for his photography, as he was well known for his fashion and portrait photographs. He also worked with Photograms, which he often called “rayographs” in reference fo himself. During Man Ray’s career as an artist, he kept a lot of his personal information to himself, and unknown to the public. He even refused to acknowledge that he had a name other than Man Ray. |
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Man Ray’s father was a tailor, he worked in a garment factory and ran a small tailoring business out of the family home. He insisted that his children assisted him from early age. His mother was also into designing the family’s clothes.
Man Ray wanted to disassociate himself from his family background, although their tailoring left an impression in his art, as flat irons, mannequins, pins, threads, sewing machines, needles, swatches of fabric and a few more objects relating to tailoring are present in almost every piece of his work.
Man Ray’s first artistic endeavours include his education at Brooklyn’s Boys’ High School from 1904-9, where he learnt drafting and some other basic art techniques. He also used to frequently visit local art museums.
He was offered a scholarship to study Architecture, but he chose to pursue in a career as an artist.
Man Ray worked hard to become a professional painter, earning money as a commercial artist and he became a technical illustrator at several Manhattan companies.
Man Ray produced his first significant photographs in 1918, after initially picking up the camera to document his work.
It was at this point that he had abandoned conventional painting, and committed himself with Dada, a radical anti-art movement.
He started creating objects and he developed unique, mechanical and photographic methods of creating images.
An example is his 1918 version of Rope Dancer, where he combined a spray-gun technique with a pen drawing.
In 1920 he assisted Marcel Duchamp to create the Rotary Glass Plates, one of the earliest examples of Kinetic art, which composed of glass plates being turned by a motor.
In July 1921, Man Ray settled in Paris, France to continue his career.
He was a pioneering photographer in Paris for two decades between the wars.
He photographed a lot of significant members of the art world, including Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí and more.
Man Ray represented in the first Surrealist exhibition with Pablo Piscasso and a few more significant artists at the Galerie Pierre in Paris in 1925. He also directed a number of influential avant-garde short films around this time.
Due to the Second World War, Man Ray was forced to return home to the United States, he settled in Los Angeles from 1940 to 1951, where he focused his creative energy on painting.
He held a solo exhibition at the Copley Galleries in Beverly Hills in 1948.
He returned to Paris in 1951 and continued his creative practices across mediums.
During this time he recreated a number of his iconic earlier works, and he also published his autobiography in 1963.
He died on November 18th in 1976 due to a lung infection.
Man Ray was responsible for several technical innovations in modern art, filmmaking and photography, for example his “Rayograms”, his 1923 experimental film Le Retour à la raisin, which was the first ‘cine-rayograph’, a motion picture created without the use of a camera and finally the first light painting, Ray’s 1935 Space Writing (Self Portrait).
Man Ray wanted to disassociate himself from his family background, although their tailoring left an impression in his art, as flat irons, mannequins, pins, threads, sewing machines, needles, swatches of fabric and a few more objects relating to tailoring are present in almost every piece of his work.
Man Ray’s first artistic endeavours include his education at Brooklyn’s Boys’ High School from 1904-9, where he learnt drafting and some other basic art techniques. He also used to frequently visit local art museums.
He was offered a scholarship to study Architecture, but he chose to pursue in a career as an artist.
Man Ray worked hard to become a professional painter, earning money as a commercial artist and he became a technical illustrator at several Manhattan companies.
Man Ray produced his first significant photographs in 1918, after initially picking up the camera to document his work.
It was at this point that he had abandoned conventional painting, and committed himself with Dada, a radical anti-art movement.
He started creating objects and he developed unique, mechanical and photographic methods of creating images.
An example is his 1918 version of Rope Dancer, where he combined a spray-gun technique with a pen drawing.
In 1920 he assisted Marcel Duchamp to create the Rotary Glass Plates, one of the earliest examples of Kinetic art, which composed of glass plates being turned by a motor.
In July 1921, Man Ray settled in Paris, France to continue his career.
He was a pioneering photographer in Paris for two decades between the wars.
He photographed a lot of significant members of the art world, including Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí and more.
Man Ray represented in the first Surrealist exhibition with Pablo Piscasso and a few more significant artists at the Galerie Pierre in Paris in 1925. He also directed a number of influential avant-garde short films around this time.
Due to the Second World War, Man Ray was forced to return home to the United States, he settled in Los Angeles from 1940 to 1951, where he focused his creative energy on painting.
He held a solo exhibition at the Copley Galleries in Beverly Hills in 1948.
He returned to Paris in 1951 and continued his creative practices across mediums.
During this time he recreated a number of his iconic earlier works, and he also published his autobiography in 1963.
He died on November 18th in 1976 due to a lung infection.
Man Ray was responsible for several technical innovations in modern art, filmmaking and photography, for example his “Rayograms”, his 1923 experimental film Le Retour à la raisin, which was the first ‘cine-rayograph’, a motion picture created without the use of a camera and finally the first light painting, Ray’s 1935 Space Writing (Self Portrait).