Man Ray Photographs

“I paint what cannot be photographed, I photograph the things that I don’t want to paint….I would rather photograph an idea than an object, and a dream rather than an idea.” Man Ray’s own words suggest the essence of his brilliant, original, and deeply influential photographic oeuvre. Taking up photography in 1915 for the purpose of reproducing his paintings, he earned money doing the same for others when he went to live and work in Paris in 1921. This led to one of the richest careers in the history of photography, ranging from portraits of celebrated artists, musicians, and writers such as Andre Breton, Marcel Duchamp, Erik Satie, Arnold SchÜnberg, T. S. Eliot, and Gertrude Stein, to the pictures using light effects outside the camera for which he is famous (cliche-verres, rayographs, and solarizations). These photographs are among the most exciting and revealing manifestations of the profusely fertile artistic impulse which made Man Ray equally celebrated as a painter, sculptor, writer, and filmmaker. Besides many classic images, this book includes a huge number of photographs that have never been seen before, including portraits of Virginia Woolf and Antonin Artaud and a large selection of erotic pictures. They add up to a truly revealing look at Man Ray, whom Cocteau called “the great poet of the darkroom.”