Artists - Man Ray

Man Ray

Man Ray was an American Visual artist who was a major contributor to ‘Dada’ and ‘Surrealist’ movements, Man Ray is best known for being a photographer with his work with fashion and portrait photographs, however Man Ray considered himself a Painter rather than a photographer.

Man Ray created Rayographs (also known as photograms) which are created by putting objects on a sheet of photographic paper and then exposing it to light and then putting it through the dark room chemicals (developer, fix and stop).

In the 1920’s Ray was influence by the surrealism movement and the writings of the psychologist Sigmund Freud. While living in Paris was the only member of the Paris surrealist movement where he made work such as ‘The Gift’ which features an iron with iron spikes glued to the front of it which he found the objects randomly at a store, this piece would lead to the ‘Surrealist object’ which is where an object is modified using found objects.