Man Ray

American painter, photographer, filmmaker, and graphic artist. A representative of the American Dada and Surrealist movements, he developed a new language for photography and cinema. For him, photography became a substitute for painting: “He paints what he cannot photograph. He photographs what he does not want to paint.” A friend of Marcel Duchamp, he was actively involved in the Dada movement and in 1915 co-founded the Society of Independent Artists, an association that exhibited avant-garde art. He began signing his works in 1912 under the pseudonym “Man Ray”, which means “ray man”. In 1922, he produced his first rayographs, photographic images made by placing objects directly on photosensitive paper. With the birth of Surrealism in 1924, he became its first photographer. As a sculptor, he is noted for his sculptures of “objects of affection.”

Works on display:

• Chess set reproduction, beech wood, 1920