Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky; August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American visual artist who spent most of his career in Paris.

[6] He had a brother, Sam, and two sisters, Dorothy "Dora" and Essie (or Elsie),[6] the youngest born in 1897 shortly after they settled at 372 Debevoise St. in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Man Ray's mother enjoyed designing the family's clothes and inventing patchwork items from scraps of fabric.

He was already an avid admirer of contemporary avant-garde art, such as the European modernists he saw at Alfred Stieglitz's 291 gallery and works by the Ashcan School.

During this period he also contributed illustrations to radical publications, including providing the cover-art for two 1914 issues of Emma Goldman's journal Mother Earth.

[7]Man Ray's work at this time was influenced by the avant-garde practices of European contemporary artists he was introduced to at the 1913 Armory Show.

His readymade The Gift (1921) is a flatiron with metal tacks attached to the bottom, and Enigma of Isidore Ducasse[17] is an unseen object (a sewing machine) wrapped in cloth and tied with cord.

[18] In 1920, Man Ray helped Duchamp make his Rotary Glass Plates, one of the earliest examples of kinetic art.

That same year, Man Ray, Katherine Dreier, and Duchamp founded the Société Anonyme, an itinerant collection that was the first museum of modern art in the U.S.

His accidental rediscovery of the cameraless photogram, which he called "rayographs", resulted in mysterious images hailed by Tristan Tzara as "pure Dada creations".

Many significant members of the art world, such as Pablo Picasso, Tristan Tzara, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Jean Cocteau, Salvador Dalí, Peggy Guggenheim, Bridget Bate Tichenor,[33] Luisa Casati,[34] and Antonin Artaud, posed for his camera.

[35][36] In the winter of 1933, surrealist artist Méret Oppenheim, known for her fur-covered teacup, posed nude for Man Ray in a well-known series of photographs depicting her standing next to a printing press.

"[38] Man Ray was represented in the first Surrealist exhibition with Jean Arp, Giorgio de Chirico, Max Ernst, Georges Malkine, André Masson, Joan Miró, and Pablo Picasso at the Galerie Pierre in Paris in 1925.

Important works from this time were a metronome with an eye, originally titled Object to Be Destroyed, and the Violon d'Ingres,[39] a stunning photograph of Kiki de Montparnasse,[40] styled after the painter/musician Ingres.

Violon d'Ingres is a popular example of how Man Ray could juxtapose disparate elements in his photography to generate meaning.

[42] Duchamp, Man Ray, and Francis Picabia were all friends and collaborators, connected by their experimental, entertaining, and innovative art.

[46] In 1948 Ray had a solo exhibition at the Copley Galleries in Beverly Hills, which brought together a wide array of work and featured his newly painted canvases of the Shakespearean Equations series.

[47] Man Ray returned to Paris in 1951, and settled with Juliet into a studio at 2 bis rue Férou near the Jardin du Luxembourg, where he continued his creative practice across mediums.

[14] Ray continued to work on new paintings, photographs, collages and art objects[50] until his death from a lung infection, in Paris, on November 18, 1976.

[53] In 1974, Man Ray received the Royal Photographic Society's Progress Medal and Honorary Fellowship "in recognition of any invention, research, publication or other contribution which has resulted in an important advance in the scientific or technological development of photography or imaging in the widest sense.

ARTnews further stated that "Man Ray offered artists in all media an example of a creative intelligence that, in its 'pursuit of pleasure and liberty', unlocked every door it came to and walked freely where it would.

The sale came after a drawn-out bidding period that lasted nearly ten minutes during Christie's New York's auction dedicated to Surrealist art.

[57] On November 9, 2017, Man Ray's Noire et Blanche (1926), formerly in the collection of Jacques Doucet, was purchased at Christie's Paris for €2,688,750 (US$3,120,658), becoming (at that time) the 14th most expensive photograph to ever sell at auction.

[14] In March 2013, Man Ray's photograph Noire et Blanche (1926) was featured in the US Postal Service's "Modern Art in America" series of stamps.

[64] Irish actor Frank Bourke is set to play Man Ray in the 2025 television series This Is Not A Murder Mystery.