Man Ray

Rays of Light
Man Ray, multitalented master of modernist imagery

Man Ray (1890-1976) was a polymath modernist, working in painting, sculpture, film, printmaking, and poetry. But it was his work in photography, with nude studies, fashion work, and portraiture that saw him pioneering a new chapter in the history of camerawork and art.

With a wide-ranging collection of both his famous and lesser known works, this monograph gives a vivid overview of Man Ray's multifaceted practice and photographic legacy. It traces Ray from his artistic beginnings in New York through to his central role in the Parisian avant-garde, where he featured in the first Surrealist exhibition with Jean Arp, Max Ernst, Andre Masson, Joan Miro, and Pablo Picasso and produced such now iconic works as Noire et blanche and Le Violon d'Ingres. Through numerous examples of still life, portraiture, and beyond, we see how Ray constantly experimented with new techniques, pushing photography out of its documentary domain into ethereal, poetic expressions through multiple exposure, solarization, and the particular brand of photograms he wittily termed "rayography."

Text in English, French, and German

About the Authors

Katherine Ware is a curator of photography at the New Mexico Museum of Art. Her publications include works on Man Ray and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.

Manfred Heiting is an internationally acknowledged expert on and collector of photographs and books, who divides his time between Amsterdam and Malibu. He is a founding member of the J. Paul Getty Museum Council and a member of the supervisory board of the Herb Ritts Foundation, both located in Los Angeles. He is editor of Deutschland im Fotobuch and co-editor of Autopsie: Deutschsprachige Fotobucher 1918 1945.