About the Artist Man Ray

Man Ray (1890–1976), born Emmanuel Radnitzky, is one of the most dazzling figures of Dada and Surrealism — the only American to play a central role in both movements. He worked equally as painter, object-maker, filmmaker and photographer, yet it was above all his photographic innovations that made him world-famous: with the cameraless "Rayographs" and the technique of solarisation he opened entirely new, dreamlike and poetic possibilities for photography. In his Paris studio he portrayed the avant-garde of his day, from Picasso to James Joyce to Salvador Dalí. He spent most of his career in Paris, and his iconic objects and images are today a fixed part of twentieth-century art history.