Man Ray

1
Man Ray
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Early Life

• Was born as Emanuel Rabinovitch on August 27,
  1890 in Philadelphia but he grew up in New Jersey
• Was the oldest child of a Jewish immigrant tailor
• Was not a good student. He decided not to go to
  college, but settled on the Bohemian life

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Life in New York

• He began working in New York in the 1910s as a
  commercial artist
• There, he met Marcel Duchamp, who became one of
  his greatest influences
• In 1912, he adopted the nickname Man Ray
• Him and Duchamp tried to bring European movements
  to America, the most energetic being Dada
• He thought that dadas experimentation was no
  match for the wild and chaotic streets of New
  York
• Dada cannot live in New York. All New York is
  dada, and will not tolerate a rival.

4
Paris

• He moved to Paris after he separated from his
  wife
• Through Duchamp, he met many artists and thinkers
  including Kiki of Montparnasse, who became his
  model, muse, and lover for six years
• He took many photographs of Kiki. He often used
  the outline of her body to represent other
  objects.

5
Rayographs

• Was interested in minimalism and abstraction
• This interest carried over to his experiments
  which he called rayographs
• A rayograph made by placing a three-dimensional
  object or objects on top of a piece of photo
  paper and exposing it to light

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• In 1922, he published his first book of
  rayographs called The Delightful Fields
• He also experimented with moving pictures
• Continued to paint, sculpt, and make portraits
  alongside of surrealists during the 1930s
• World War II forced him to leave the country, so
  he moved to Hollywood.

7
Hollywood

• He spent 10 years In Hollywood as a fashion
  photographer.
• He still used his minimalist techniques and
  interesting lighting.
• He helped revolutionize this discipline

8
Later life and death

• After the war, he moved back to Paris where he
  stayed until his death
• He continued creating paintings, sculptures,
  films, and photographs for the last 25 years of
  his life
• He died on November 18, 1976

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Sources

• http//www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/m
  an-ray/prophet-of-the-avant-garde/510/
• http//www.manraytrust.com/
• http//www.artchive.com/artchive/M/man_ray.html