Photography artist reseach Man Ray

Man Ray  Photography

Man Ray was born Emmanuel Radnitzky in 1890. He was an American artist who spent most of his career in Paris. Man Ray was associated with Dada and Surrealism, while his work included photography, painting, film, sculpture, and prints.

Man Ray is best remembered for his photography, despite the fact he considered himself a painter. His experiments with photography included photograms (camera-less pictures) which he called 'Rayographs' in reference to himself. Man Ray was also a fashion and portrait photographer with many of his photos published in magazines such as Harper's Bazaar, Vu, and Vogue.

Throughout the 1920s and 1930s Man Ray experimented with photography through portraiture; a means of capturing the activities of his avant-garde friends. He described himself during this time as "an official recorder of events and personalities." The list of people in his portraits is impressive. Salvador Dali looked like a circus magician. The Surrealist Meret Oppenheim was photographed in the nude, smeared with black ink from an etching press. Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Picasso, Matisse, Duchamp, Salvador Dali were all his subjects. Many of the portraits have a feeling of playfulness.

Man Ray also experimented with a technique called solarization, a kind of overexposure which adds a silvery, ghostly quality to the image. In a solarised black-and-white portrait of Lee Miller, who was his lover and model, her hair looks like "a helmet of beaten gold."

Man Ray had a distinctive technique; he worked quickly and didn't instruct the sitter because he wanted the portraits to appear natural. His portraits of the social elite during this time suggest a mutual respect between the subjects and the photographer. The great artists and writers who sat for him probably understood that they themselves were equally in the presence of a great artist.

Photography for Man Ray operated in the gap between art and life. In some of his photographs he seemed to be documenting sculptures. Man Ray said he would photograph an idea rather than an object, and a dream rather than an idea. During the 1920s he at his peak as a conceptual innovator. It was at this time he produced his most recognised and popular photograph, "Le Violon d'Ingres".

Le Violin d'Ingres is a photograph of his lover, an actor known as Kiki. (The title is a French expression that means "hobby".) Man Ray drew two black shapes on her back to make her appear like a musical instrument. The photograph references a painting called 'Le Bain Turc' painted by neoclassical French artist Jean August Dominique. The resemblance of the shape of Kiki's back to a violin, with the added f-holes make this a classic Surrealist work. Le Violon d'Ingres is a visual pun, depicting his muse, Kiki, as his Violon d'Ingres, his 'hobby'. She is presented as a passive instrument or plaything.

Man Ray was an innovative and creative photographer and artist. His contribution to photography marks him as one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century.