DAY 273

FAMOUS PHOTOGRAPHERS

Man Ray (1890–1976)

ARTIST AND AGITATOR

Emmanuel Radnitsky changed his name to Man Ray in 1912, during time spent among the bohemian circle of Greenwich Village. Initially a Cubist painter, he eventually gave up cubism for dadaism, dadaism for surrealism, and then abandoned painting altogether in his pursuit of photography.¹ Along with experimental artist Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray attempted to break through the constraints of the visual arts first in New York, and then Paris, in the 1920s. Through Duchamp, he met a culturally elite circle—including Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, Salvador Dali, Gertrude Stein, and James Joyce—and became their unofficial photographer.

Throughout the 1920s, Ray experimented primarily with photography and film. He developed the rayograph process of making photographs by laying three-dimensional objects on photo paper and exposing it to light. Kiki de Montparnasse, a famous performer and model, was his companion, model and muse, and the subject of many of his photographs.

Throughout the 1930s, he continued to paint, sculpt, and photograph with the surrealists but was forced to return to the United States during World War II. He settled in Los Angeles and worked for the next 10 years as a fashion photographer, again breaking the rules and experimenting with bold use of lighting and minimalist representation. He eventually returned to Paris and spent the remaining 25 years of his life exploring the boundaries of visual art, creating the paintings, sculptures, films, and assemblages that made him one of the most influential artists of his time. —GC