Man Ray essays

Man Ray essays The date was August 27, 1890 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. On this day two Russian-Jewish immigrants, Melach and her husband had a child. His name was Emmanuel Radnitsky. He was teased in his youth about his name and later on became Man Ray. The family eventually moved to Brooklyn. As a child he enjoyed sketching, inventing, repairing, and building. He went to various schools in New York after refusing a scholarship to study architecture. Ray became a commercial artist and draftsman and had his first exhibit at 25. He spent some time in New Jersey working as an advertising draftsman. The artists who inspired him were Alfred Stieglitz and Robert Henri. In 1913, he was exposed to Cubism and began to use some of these elements in his work. In 1914, Man Ray married the Belgian poet, Adon Lacroix and later met Marcel Duchamp After Meeting Duchamp, he bought his first camera. They both became very good friends who influenced each other. In 1921, Man Ray chose to move to Paris after being encouraged to do so by Duchamp. He and his wife also separated at this time. This is where he spent the rest of his life although he did live in Hollywood for ten years during WWII. He drew many portraits when first moving to France. He lived in a room on the top floor that belonged to a woman named Yvonne Chastel. For six years after the separation of his wife a performer named Kiki was his lover, model, and muse but later remarried to a dancer named Juliet Brown. The couple married after the war when Ray moved back to France. Man Ray was known for experimenting with everything in artwork. He accumulated many famous friends such as Georges Braque, Virginia Woolf, Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst, James Joyce, Ernest Hemmingway, Salvador Dali and the list goes on. In Paris, he joined the surrealists and the Dadas. H e participated in the first international Dada show held in Paris. He was a huge influence to French contemporary art. ...