Thursday, June 7, 2018

Artist of the day, June 7: Man Ray, American painter, sculptor, photographer, poet

Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky) (1890 – 1976) was an American visual artist who spent most of his career in France. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal. He produced major works in a variety of media but considered himself a painter above all. He was best known for his photography, and he was a renowned fashion and portrait photographer. Man Ray is also noted for his work with photograms, which he called "rayographs" in reference to himself.

Man Ray's career is distinctive above all for the success he achieved in both the United States and Europe. First maturing in the center of American modernism in the 1910s, he made Paris his home in the 1920s and 1930s, and in the 1940s he crossed the Atlantic once again, spending periods in New York and Hollywood. His art spanned painting, sculpture, film, prints and poetry, and in his long career he worked in styles influenced by Cubism, Futurism, Dada and Surrealism.

Although he matured as an abstract painter, Man Ray eventually disregarded the traditional superiority painting held over photography and happily moved between different forms. Dada and Surrealism were important in encouraging this attitude; they also persuaded him that the idea motivating a work of art was more important than the work of art itself.

For Man Ray, photography often operated in the gap between art and life. It was a means of documenting sculptures that never had an independent life outside the photograph, and it was a means of capturing the activities of his avant-garde friends. His work as a commercial photographer encouraged him to create fine, carefully composed prints, but he would never aspire to be a fine art photographer in the manner of his early inspiration, Alfred Stieglitz.

André Breton once described Man Ray as a 'pre-Surrealist', something which accurately describes the artist's natural affinity for the style. Even before the movement had coalesced, in the mid 1920s, his work, influenced by Marcel Duchamp, had Surrealist undertones, and he would continue to draw on the movement's ideas throughout his life. His work has ultimately been very important in popularizing Surrealism.

© 2018. All images are copyrighted © by Man Ray or assignee. The use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained.




Mr Man Ray

Salvador Dalí and Man Ray in Paris, on June 16, 1934

1908

1913, Landscape (Paysage Fauve)

1916, Legend

1916, Long Distance

1916, Orchestra

1916, Silhouette

1916, The Rope Dancer Accompanies Herself with Her Shadows

1916-17,  Concrete Mixer

1916-17, Decanter

1916-17, Dragonfly

1916-17, Mime (Revolving Doors)

1917, Quartet

1917, Shadows

1917, The Meeting

1917, Young Girl

1918-20, Woman (La Femme)

1919, Seguidilla

1920, Kiki de Montparnasse

1920, Lampshade

1920, The Coat-Stand (Porte manteau)

1920, Three Heads (Joseph Stella and Marcel Duchamp, painting bust portrait of Man Ray above Duchamp)

1921, Portrait Of Rose Sélavy

1921–22, Rencontre dans la porte tournante

1922, Marquise Casati

1922, The kiss

1922, Untitled (Rayograph)

1922, Untitled (Rayograph)

1923, Indestructible Object

1924, Ingres's Violin

1926, black and white

1926, Emak Bakia

1927, Nude

1929, Four or Five Times

1929, Woman with Long Hair

1930,  Le Baiser (The Kiss)

1930, Mannequin on Staircase

1930, Portrait of Tanya Ramm

1930, The Veil

1932, Glass Tears

1932-34, Observatory Time - The Lovers

1933, Erotique Voilee

1934, Multiple Exposure

1934, Neck

1934-35, Mathematical Object (Anthony)

1936, Objet Trouvé Pour Marcel Jean

1937, Dora Maar, Ady, Picasso and Kasbec-dog (Holidays in Antibes)

1938, La Fortune

1938, Mannequin (Adieu foulard)

1943, The Mug Drawing III

1948, Permanent Attraction

1949, Shakespearean Equation, Hamlet

1962, L'Incompris (Misunderstood)

1963, Cadeau (Gift)

1965, Needle and Thread

1966, Untitled (Two Hands)

1967, The father of Mona Lisa

1970, Autoportrait

1971, Untitled (Bowl and Spoon)

1973, La Beau Temps

Cala Lilies

ModeArte

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