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Self-Portrait in Graham Hollywood Car
Man Ray
1941
Image
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The American multidisciplinary artist Man Ray played a major role in the Dada and surrealist movements of the Parisian avant-garde in the 1920s. Born Emmanuel Radnitzky in Philadelphia, he adopted a pseudonym early on in his career, as did many other Jews working in the period. After meeting and collaborating with the French artist Marcel Duchamp, in 1921 Man Ray moved to Paris, where he opened a photography studio. There he experimented with art film and photography, creating his signature “rayographs,” commonly referred to as photograms, in which objects were collaged onto photosensitive paper and exposed to light, producing quasi-abstract, black-and-white images. During World War II, Man Ray lived in the United States, but in 1951 he returned to Paris.
The 1910s were a time of experimentation for Man Ray. Inspired by the paintings of European modernists at the Armory Show in New York in 1913, he began painting in an abstract style, one that…
A. Leopold,
It would appear from your letter that you do not believe that art is a factor in civilization and progress. You are not the only one. One might agree with you that up to now no statue or…
Around the time that Paul Strand took this photograph, he wrote an essay on photography that called for developing an original American art “without the outside influence of Paris art schools.” This…