Man Ray
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
-
For other uses, see Man Ray (disambiguation).
Man Ray (August 27, 1890–November 18, 1976) was an American artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. Perhaps best described simply as a modernist, he was a significant contributor to both the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal. Best known in the art world for his avant-garde photography, Man Ray produced major works in a variety of media and considered himself a painter above all. He was also a renowned fashion and portrait photographer.
While appreciation for Man Ray’s work beyond his fashion and portrait photography was slow in coming during his lifetime, especially in his native United States, his reputation has grown steadily in the decades since. In 1999, ARTnews magazine named him one of the 25 most influential artists of the 20th century, citing his groundbreaking photography as well as "his explorations of film, painting, sculpture, collage, assemblage, and prototypes of what would eventually be called performance art and conceptual art" and saying "Man Ray offered artists in all media an example of a creative intelligence that, in its 'pursuit of pleasure and liberty,'" — Man Ray’s stated guiding principles — "unlocked every door it came to and walked freely where it would."
Contents |
[edit] Biography
[edit] Background and Early Life
From the time he began attracting attention as an artist until his death more than 60 years later, Man Ray allowed little of his early life or family background to be known to the public, even refusing to acknowledge that he had ever had any name other than Man Ray.
In reality, Man Ray was born Emmanuel Radnitzky, in the South Side of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1890, the eldest child of recent Russian-Jewish immigrants. The family would eventually include another son and two daughters, the youngest born shortly after they settled in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York, in 1897. In early 1912, the Radnitzky family changed their surname to Ray, a name selected by Man Ray's brother, in reaction to the ethnic discrimination and anti-Semitism prevalent at that time. Emmanuel, who was called "Manny" as a nickname, changed his first name to Man at this time, and gradually began to use Man Ray as his combined single name.
Man Ray’s father was a garment factory worker who also ran a small tailoring business out of the family home, enlisting his children from an early age. Man Ray’s mother was a talented amateur seamstress who made the family’s clothes from her own designs. Despite Man Ray’s desire to disassociate himself from his family background, this experience left an enduring mark on his art. Tailor's dummies, flat irons, sewing machines, needles, pins, threads, swatches of fabric, and other items related to clothing and sewing appear at every stage of his work and in almost every medium. Art historians have also noted similarity in his collage and painting techniques to those used in making clothing.
[edit] First Artistic Endeavors
Man Ray showed evidence of being artistically and mechanically inclined from childhood. His education at Boys' High School from 1904 to 1908 provided him with a solid grounding in drafting and other basic art techniques. At the same time, he educated himself with frequent visits to the local art museums, where he studied the works of the Old Masters. After graduation from high school, he was offered a scholarship to study architecture but chose to pursue a career as an artist instead. However much this decision disappointed his parents' aspirations to upward mobility and assimilation, they nevertheless rearranged the family's modest living quarters so that Man Ray could use a room as his studio. He stayed for the next four years, working steadily toward his goal of becoming professional painter, while earning money as a commercial artist and technical illustrator at several Manhattan companies.
From the surviving examples of his work from this period, it appears he attempted mostly paintings and drawings in 19th century styles. He was already an avid admirer of vanguard art of the time, such as European modernists he saw at Alfred Stieglitz's "291" gallery and works by Ashcan School, but, with a few exceptions, was not yet able to translate these new trends into his own work. The art classes he sporadically attended -- including stints and National Academy of Design and the Art Students League -- were of little benefit to him, until he enrolled in the Ferrer School in the autumn of 1912, thus beginning a period of intense and rapid artistic development.
[edit] New York
In 1915, Man Ray had his first one-man show of paintings and drawings. His first proto-Dada object, an assemblage titled "Self-Portrait", was exhibited the following year. He produced his first significant photographs in 1918. In 1913 Man Ray met his first wife, Adon Lacroix. They married in 1914, seperated in 1919, and were formally divorced in 1937.
While living in New York City, with his friend Marcel Duchamp, he formed the American branch of the Dada movement, which began in Europe as a radical rejection of traditional art.
After a few unsuccessful experiments, and notably after the publication of a unique issue of New York Dada in 1920, Man Ray stated, "Dada cannot live in New York".
[edit] Paris
In July 1921, he went to live and work in Paris, France, and soon settled in the Montparnasse quarter favored by many artists. Shortly after arriving in Paris, he met and fell in love with Kiki de Montparnasse (Alice Prin), an artists' model and celebrated character in Paris' bohemian circles. Kiki was Man Ray's companion for most of the 1920s. She became the subject of some of his most famous photographic images and starred in his experimental films. In 1929 he began a long love affair with the Surrealist photographer Lee Miller.
For the next 20 years in Montparnasse, Man Ray made his mark on the art of photography. Great artists of the day such as James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, and Jean Cocteau posed for his camera.
With Jean Arp, Max Ernst, André Masson, Joan Miró, and Pablo Picasso, Man Ray was represented in the first Surrealist exhibition at the Gallerie Pierre in Paris in 1925.
In 1934, Surrealist artist Méret Oppenheim, known for her fur-covered tea cup, posed for Man Ray in what became a well-known series of photographs depicting Oppenheim nude, standing next to a printing press.
Together with Lee Miller — his photography assistant and lover — Man Ray reinvented the photographic technique of solarization. He also created a technique using photograms he called rayographs.
Man Ray also directed a number of influential avant-garde short films, such as Le Retour à la Raison (2 mins, 1923); Emak-Bakia (16 mins, 1926); L'Étoile de Mer (15 mins, 1928); and Les Mystéres du Château du Dé (20 mins, 1929).
[edit] Later Life
Later in life, Man Ray returned to the United States, where he lived in Los Angeles, California from 1940 until 1951. A few days after arriving in Los Angeles, Man Ray met Juliet Browner, a trained dancer and experienced artists' model. They began living together almost immediately and married in 1946, in a double wedding with their friends Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning. However, he called Montparnasse home and he returned there. He was interred in the Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris. His epitaph reads: unconcerned, but not indifferent.
When Juliet Browner Man Ray, died in 1991, she was interred in the same tomb. Her epitaph reads, together again. Juliet set up a trust for his work and made many donations of his work to museums.
[edit] Quotations
[edit] By Man Ray
- "There is no progress in art, any more than there is progress in making love. There are simply different ways of doing it." (1948 essay, "To Be Continued, Unnoticed")
- "I have never painted a recent picture." (1966 essay)
- "When I saw I was under attack from all sides, I knew I was on the right track." (1972 interview, published 1973 in Man Ray by Sarane Alexandrian)
[edit] About Man Ray
- "MAN RAY, n.m. synon. de Joie jouer jouir." (Translation: "MAN RAY, masculine noun, synonymous with joy, to play, to enjoy.") — Marcel Duchamp, as the opening epigram for Man Ray's memoir Self-Portrait, 1963.
- "With him you could try anything — there was nothing you were told not to do, except spill the chemicals. With Man Ray, you were free to do what your imagination conjured, and that kind of encouragement was wonderful." — artist and photographer Naomi Savage, Man Ray’s niece and protégée, in 2000 newspaper interview.
- "Man Ray is a youthful alchemist forever in quest of the painter's philosopher's stone. May he never find it, as that would bring an end to his experimentations which of the very condition of living art experimentation." — Adolf Wolff, The International, No. 8, January 1914 (quoted in Naumann, Conversion to Modernism).
[edit] References
- Sarane Alexandrian; Man Ray; J. P. O'Hara; ISBN 0-879-55603-X (1973)
- Neil Baldwin; Man Ray: American Artist; Da Capo Press; ISBN 0-306-81014-X (1988, 2000)
- A. D. Coleman; "Willful Provocateur"; ARTnews, May 1999.
- Milly Heyd; "Man Ray/Emmanuel Radnitsky: Who is Behind the Enigma of Isidore Ducasse?"; in Complex Identities: Jewish Consciousness and Modern Art; ed. Matthew Baigell and Milly Heyd; Rutgers University Press; ISBN 0-8135-2869-0 (2001).
- Francis Naumann; Conversion to Modernism: The Early Work of Man Ray; Rutgers University Press; ISBN 0-8135-3148-9 (2003).
[edit] Man Ray references in popular culture
- Man Ray's surrealist art inspired the R.E.M. song "Feeling Gravity's Pull", on Fables of the Reconstruction. It contains the lines, "It's a Man Ray kind of sky. Let me show you what I can do with it."
- Man Ray and his work are the inspiration for the British band The Futureheads' song "Man Ray". The song includes the line: "touch each other in black and white."
- There was a character called Man Ray in Spongebob Squarepants.
- One famous Man Ray painting was the inspiration for the infamous lips logo of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
- The band; Man-Raze's name is in part a reference to Man Ray
- The music video for the song "Otherside" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers features the lips from Man Ray's famous painting "The Lovers". The protagonist in the video uses the lips as a pair of wings to escape a dragon.
[edit] External links
- International Photography Hall of Fame & Museum listing for Man Ray
- Brief biography of Man Ray by the Biography Resource Center, Gale Group
- Man Ray Trust
- Official Man Ray Licensing archive (searchable)
- Online exhibition on Man Ray from the Getty Museum in Los Angeles
- Collection of Man Ray short films
- Discussion of Man Ray and the photogram
- Project La Fortune: Billiard Players' Solution to Man Ray's "La Fortune"
- The Rope Dancer Accompanies Herself with Her Shadows in the MoMA Online Collection
