"I do not photograph nature, I photograph my fantasy," Man Ray proclaimed, and he found in the camera's eye and in light's magical chemistry the mechanisms for dreaming. Schooled as a painter and designer in New York, Man Ray turned to photography after discovering the 291 Gallery and its charismatic founder, Alfred Stieglitz. As a young expatriate in Paris during the twenties and thirties, Man Ray embraced surrealism and dadaism, creeds that emphasized chance effects, disjunction, and surprise. Tireless experimentation with technique led him to employ solarization, grain enlargement, mixed media, and cameraless prints (photograms)-- which he called "Rayographs"-- made by placing objects directly on photographic paper and exposing them to light. These successful manipulations, for which he was dubbed "the poet of the darkroom" by fellow surrealist Jean Cocteau, were a major contribution to twentieth-century photography.
Man Ray was no less adept at commercial and portrait photography, and he earned a good living both in Paris and later in Hollywood. His portraits of Joyce, Eliot, Matisse, Artaud, Hemingway, and Brancusi, among others, testify to his compelling insight. Renowned for his exotic wit and elegance, Man Ray was one of the most popular figures of his time and his work continues to hold wide appeal.
Man Ray presents forty-three of the greatest images from throughout the artist's career. The essay by Jed Perl describes the influences behind Man Ray's abundant career and his enduring contribution to photography.
Born in 1890 in Philadelphia, Man Ray began as a painter, not taking up photography until 1915, around the same time he had his first one-man show of paintings in New York. A surrealist living in Paris during the twenties and thirties, he hoped to change or "transform" photography into a new kind of art. In 1922, an album of his first cameraless photos, the "Rayographs," were introduced, and a year later his first avant-garde film using the same technique was shown. During the forties he moved to Hollywood, where-- even though he still photographed-- painting once again became his main focus. After returning to Paris in 1952, he was awarded the Gold Medal for Photography at the Biennale, Venice in 1962. His work was also shown in leading museums in Paris, Los Angeles, Rotterdam, and Denmark. He died in France in 1976, and in 1988 was given a major retrospective exhibition with the National Museum of American Art (Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.).
