Man
Ray (1890-1976)
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Ray, Man (1890-1976), American
painter, photographer, and leading figure in the artistic
avant-garde in Paris of the 1920s. He was born in
Philadelphia, studied at the National Academy of Design
in New York City, and held his first one-man show of
paintings in 1912. With his friend, the French painter
Marcel Duchamp, he helped to found the New York City Dada
group in 1917. Under Duchamp's influence, he began to
work with new materials and techniques, for example,
painting with an airbrush on glass and other surfaces.
His "ready-mades" such as his flatiron with
tacks projecting from the bottom called The Gift (1921,
Museum of Modern Art, New York City) were made from
everyday manufactured objects. He also pioneered in
kinetic works, which have moving parts. Going to Paris in
1921, he developed “Rayographs,” abstract
images made by placing objects on light-sensitive
surfaces. He also became involved in surrealism and made
art films, including L'Étoile de Mer (1928). The
expressive possibilities of photography interested him
increasingly, and in California from 1940 to 1946 he
taught the subject. In later years in France, he
experimented with new ways of making color prints, and he
published an autobiography, Self Portrait (1963).
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