Man Ray

American, 1890–1976

Over the course of his storied career, Man Ray created work spanning a variety of mediums: painting, photography, sculpture, printmaking, film, poetry, and prose. His work aligned variously with Cubism, Futurism, Dada, and Surrealism—all the while retaining its own distinct style. Man Ray is most noted for his profound body of photographic works, which encompass fashion, portraiture, and technical experimentation such as solarization and the widely celebrated photograms or “rayographs”. The artist created these compelling images without a camera, arranging found objects onto sheets of photosensitive paper and exposing them to light. The rayographs wavered between representation and concept, epitomizing the indeterminate forces that have come to define his vast oeuvre. Alluding to relationships between the real and the fictive, Man Ray commanded a deft mastery over the liminal territory between the abstract and figurative form.

Man Ray was born in 1890 in Philadelphia, and died in 1976 in Paris. His work is held in the collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Centre Pompidou, Paris; and Israel Museum, Jerusalem, among others.

© Man Ray Trust/ADAGP 2018