Man Ray (Emmanuel Radnitzky)

Born in Philadelphia but grown up in New York Man Ray artistic vision was influenced by Robert Henri, Max Weber and Adolf Wolff. He opened his studio in Jersey in 1913 painting in Cubist style and became close friend with Alfred Stieglitz, who owned the 291 Gallery and introduced him to photography. In 1915 he met Marcel Duchamp, with whom he also started a long friendship and collaboration in promoting Dada movement in US. In 1921 he moved to Paris where he met James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Jean Cocteau among others. He hired Lee Miller who became his assistant, his muse and his lover. They discovered the solarization process and invented the shadowphotograph technique. He collaborated with Ferdinand Léger and Duchamp and directed avant-garde short films and two books with Paul Éluard. With the start of WWII he went back to US in Pasadena where he stayed until 1951, before returning to Paris and spend his last years in Montparnasse. He published his Self Portrait in 1963 and continued to work in painting and photography, object collage till his death in 1976.