Amazon.com

What is so interesting about the artist Man Ray is how relevant his multimedia works seem to us today. Man Ray, who was born in Brooklyn, New York, and moved to Paris in 1921, was a photographer, filmmaker, painter, and writer who quickly became one of the most celebrated figures associated with the Surrealist movement. With more than 300 gorgeously reproduced duotones of his photographs, collages, drawings, objects, and a variety of graphic work, this is the quintessential book on the intriguing artist, presenting a unique overview of his entire body of work. Most compelling are his portraits of figures who embody the spirit of the artistic vanguard of their generation: André Breton, Yves Tanguy, Jean Cocteau, Salvador Dalí, and Gertrude Stein, as well as his innovative fashion spreads for Vanity Fair, Vogue, and Harper's Bazaar. ... Read more

Reviews (7)

Good, but not an introduction for beginners
This small book is part of a vague series called Icons by Taschen.They are a dim reflection on some of their larger works.

This book is definitely not for beginners, not meant to be an introduction to Man Ray.However, it has some value for people familiar with Man Ray, Andre Breton and/or Dada.Think of it as material for art history or food for thought about the time.

Do yourself a favor and don't try to learn about Man Ray from this book or any of the enthusiastic or overblown "reviews" of it.Start with something more comprehensive.

If and when you already know about Man Ray and where he fits, get this book and carry it around when you want to feed your head a little.It is nicely done and fills that need very well.

For those unfamiliar with Man Ray, he is not primarily known as a photographer and never intended to be.It is probably the ease of publishing his photographs that has distracted people to thinking of him this way.Don't miss the rest of his work, especially his writing.Read his autobiography and use his photographs as a "program" to identify the players, perhaps.

The original is still the master.
Man Ray used photography as painterly art, not photojournalism.Time spent with each plate provides a vista to questions, epiphanies, riddles, personality or beauty.His nudes are utterly refreshing in a time when women are photographed as blank "hey baby, what's your number" objects.(Ruth Bernhard also recommended.)

Add this book to your collection for the plates alone, but the accompanying essays are terrific.Better yet, visit the mind-expanding collection at the Getty in Los Angeles.

kind of disappointing
I bought this book expecting it to be a basic guide on Man Ray's work. The problem is it happens to be a little too basic. You can't find Man Ray's most expressive work, except for "Tears" (only on the cover), "Le Violin d'Ingres", "Mask of Woman", "Le Priere" and a few Rayographs. It seems to be a biographic record instead of an art book, although it doesn't blur the genius of Man Ray's photographs.

Stunning Stylized Images of a Most Innovative Artist
Although many people think of Man Ray only as a photographer, his artistic work began with training in drawing.His approach to photography was always that of a painter, seeing photography as a way to create images with light as well as with the hand.He made two major innovations in technique, being the first to learn to expose images on photographic paper to capture their outline (rayographs) and to control the solarization process (where a partial reversal of values occurs in a photograph, accompanied by a characteristic edge) to create a consistent halo appearance.He also developed many ways to affect the surface appearance of the objects he photographed to make them more abstract.Deeply interested in Dadaism and Surrealism (although never formally joining either movement), Man Ray also captured witty titles and everyday objects in his photography to give additional depth to the message of his work.You will find many of his well-known portraits of famous artists in this volume.

Before saying more about this outstanding volume, let me caution you (as the cover art surely must) that Man Ray often created images of nude women.If such things offend you, this volume will not be appropriate for you.

The essays in this volume as reproduced in English, German, and French.I found them very helpful for providing technical background on the influences on and methods used in Man Ray's work.His approach was very Edison-like in its many unsuccessful experiments and accidents that led to important breakthroughs.A random mouse helped him learn how to do solarization.

It is not surprising that Marcel Duchamp and he became instant friends.Their perspectives on art have many points in common.

Born as Emmanuel Radnitzky in Philadelphia in 1890, he had moved to New York by age 7, and became exposed there to many important artistic influences.These included the Stieglitz gallery, the Armory Show in 1913, and leading artists in New York.He started as a photographer in 1914 just before meeting Marcel Duchamp.His primary years of productivity were spent in Paris, from which he was driven by the Nazi invasion in 1940.His return to the United States was less than a total joy, and he resided again in Paris after 1951.

I believe that this volume is as much a delight for the mind as it is for the eye.Subtle differences in processing of similar images create enormously changed reactions in the viewer.You then move forward to study the reason for your changed perspective and find it in a small detail . . . like a slightly lifted eyebrow.Miror images in positive and negative reproduced side by side on facing pages create a similar reaction.

Here are my favorites from these outstanding reproductions of Man Ray's best work:

Integration of Shadows 1919

Untitled 1922

La violin d'Ingres 1924

Retour a la raison 1923

Meret Oppenheim 1932

"Beauty in ultra violet" c. 1931

Erotique voilee [Meret Oppenheim] 1933

Le Priere c. 1930

Anatomia 1929

Nusch and Sonia 1935

Untitled 1931

Untitled [hair] 1931

Lee Miller c. 1930

Objet mathematique 1934-36

Les Arums 1039

Untitled [Dancer] c. 1935

Enough Rope 1944

Rayograph 1925

Rayograph 1930

Champs delicieux 1922

Marcel Duchamp 1916

Constantin Brancusi 1933

Max Ernst c. 1934

Andre Breton c. 1930

Marcel Duchamp 1921

Joan Miro c. 1930

Pablo Picasso 1932

If you enjoy the the ultimate in photographic creativity, this is the book for you!

After you finish this work, I suggest that you take these insights and begin to create some art of your own.Consider creating composite images by including your own collages with natural objects and photographing them, for example.You can even include your own poems as adjoining commentaries.

Expand your mind and your grasp by taking advantage of all the resources at your disposal!

The guy of art
Have you ever seen a photo of eye with sting eyeblows? His photos are nothing but an art...Massimo! Man Ray is famous for his so-called Rayograph, which is to make pictures without using camera. This book contains many works of him and some photos are of Surrealists. ... Read more

Book Description

During a career that spanned more than fifty years, two continents, and work in many media, Man Ray (1890-1976) produced a large body of photographic images that continue to command our attention. This volume presents his early work in New York in the 1910s, selections from his sizeable Paris oeuvre in the 20s, 30s, and 50s, and photographs taken during his time in Hollywood in the 40s. Though in later years he expressed a desire to be remembered as a painter, Man Ray continued to work with photography throughout his life, pushing the boundaries of the medium with cameraless images, solarized portraits, and other innovations.

The Getty Museum's collection of three hundred works by Man Ray includes vintage prints from the the 1910s through the 1960s. This volume presents more than fifty photographs, with commentary on each image by Katherine Ware, assistant curator of photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum. The volume also includes an overview of his life and the edited transcript of a symposium on his career. ... Read more

Book Description

Man Ray (1890-1976) has long been considered one of the most versatile and innovative artists of the twentieth century. As a painter, writer, sculptor, photographer, and filmmaker, he is best known for his intimate association with the French Surrealist group in Paris during the 1920s and 1930s, particularly for his highly inventive and unconventional photographic images. These remarkable accomplishments, however, have tended to overshadow the importance of his earlier work-significant not only for comprehending Man Ray's future artistic development, but also for fleshing out our understanding of the visual arts in America during one of the most important and crucial phases of modernism's evolution.

The book, and the exhibition for which it serves as the catalogue, concentrate on Man Ray's production from 1907 to 1917. Conversion to Modernism is the first comprehensive, fully illustrated work to examine this artist's seminal years, beginning with his high school years in Brooklyn, his studies at the Art Students League and the National Academy of Design in New York, and the time he spent in life drawing classes at the more progressive Ferrer Center.

From 1913 to 1915, Man Ray lived in a small artists' colony in Grantwood, New Jersey. It was here, studying with Samuel Halpert (a former student of Matisse), that he began to become the artist we know today. Throughout this period, Man Ray's work developed methodically, in a gradual but certain evolution to abstraction. This progression culminated in 1916 with the publication of a remarkably early and important formalist tract, wherein the flat planar surface is established as a common vehicle of expression for all the arts: music, literature, dance, architecture, sculpture, and painting. The last section of the book includes recently discovered photographs and other works influenced by the emergent Dada movement. Here is Man Ray in recognizable form just before he leaves the country for France in 1921. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A Photographer to Think About
Man Ray left his mark on photography not only as a photographer but as an innovator. In the book Man Ray: Paris Photographs 1920-34 he pushed the formal boundaries to create his own imaginative style. The photos as well as the layout of book have been carefully executed through his knowledge of design.

This book features objects, nudes, portraits and Rayographs. The space between truth and fiction is bridged through the elements of design and his images are visually pleasing. His nudes define femininity. They are ideal for the male gaze which captures the essence of the female form through erotic eyes. It is evident that Man Ray knew the rules therefore he could break them. Rayographs were made by placing objects directly on film. Ray created graphically interesting images using this process which contained both dada and surrealist ideas. ... Read more

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The Paris dada manifesto of 1921 "Dada Overthrows Everything" posed a dare to posterity: "What does Dada do? 50 francs reward for anyone who finds the way to explain us." Cultural historian Herbert Lottman finds a great way to explain dada: by focusing on its court photographer, Man Ray. Man Ray's Montparnasse brings you into the salons of Peggy Guggenheim and Gertrude Stein, and gives context to his dazzling photos: his naked mistress Kiki impersonating a violin; Duchamp impersonating a woman named Rrose Selavy (pronounced "c'est la vie"); Picasso as a toreador; and Proust on his deathbed, asleep at last, seemingly at peace and in some sort of reverie.

If one man's life could sum up the explosively creative international arts enclave Montparnasse in Paris between the wars, doubtless it would be Man Ray. Who else crossed paths with Hemingway, Mayakovski, Calder, James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, Atget, Satie, Cocteau, the battling bohemians André Breton and Tristan Tzara, and Arno Breker, who wound up as Hitler's favorite sculptor? It was a tumultuously innovative time. The antiwar Swiss loathed the elitist French dadaists; dadaists quarreled with surrealists. Breton broke a writer's arm with his cane because he badmouthed Picasso, Duchamp, and Gide. When Malcolm Cowley punched out a reactionary restaurateur, it was a great career move--his fame spurred his nascent literary career. Apollinaire warned young dada friends against Cocteau ("Don't trust Cocteau! He's a cheat and a chameleon!"), because he was a darling of high society. Eluard said the surrealists would "shoot him down like a stinking animal."

What made Man Ray an instant insider was his skill with the camera and his refusal to join the culture wars. "My neutral position was invaluable to all," he said. "I became an official recorder of events and personalities." "He was like the kid on the block with the guitar invited to everyone's party," writes Lottman. "He lived a double life, dressing for dinner in society, then reassuming a bohemian posture for life among the writers and painters."

Lottman's book is delightful, a quick read that makes legendary names in the history of art come alive as wildly misbehaving young people. When Henry Miller would drunkenly harangue a café, he earned a catcall: "Why don't you write a book?" Reading Lottman, you get a vivid sense of how the overlapping lives in that astounding time and place erupted in art. It's a privilege to be invited to such a historic party. --Victoria Ellison ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Don't do Paris without it! A great book on Paris history
It was merely coincidence that one day after returning from Paris (I always stay in a small hotel on rue Delambre in Montparnasse) I was in a bookstore in Colorado and picked this up just for the title.

Little did I know it would explode with stories and much interesting history and anecdotes about the photographer Man Ray and all his notorious friends & lovers in the pre WWII era of Montparnasse when Dada and Surrealism were taking hold. As I had spent so many hours wandering the same streets and sitting in the same cafes it really grabbed me and was a very interesting read.

In short, if you: (any or all of the below)-

Love Paris; plan to go there; have interest in the "lost generation/cafe society" era of Paris and particularly Montparnasse (one of my favorite areas in Paris);

then you are crazy if you don't buy this book. I am taking it with me for reference on my Montparnasse cafe crawls when I return next year.
Highly recommended.

Fascinating View of Montparnasse
Although I cannot attest to the scholarly quality of "Man Ray's Montparnasse", I believe that Lottman provides insight into this Parisian art district.

The reader learns about the different bars/clubs that were important. He learns who met where; the locations of various artist studios; and the general feel of the era. The dissent in the da da movement and the surrealist movement was significant.

Man Ray's neutral role in all of this is interesting. Lottman makes it appear that obtaining portrait sitters was one of Ray's primary goals. That along with women and his cars.

I enjoyed the book and believe that there is much to be learned from it. Caveat: If there are historicals errors as the other reviewer mentions, then it is difficult to know what you can and cannot believe.

Shallow Scholarship
Man Ray's experience in Paris is a fascinating and complex subject, certainly worthy of a book unto itself. Unfortunately the author of this book seems content to present his readers with out-of-date information. I do not pretend to be an expert on Man Ray. But I have researched extensively the life and photography of Berenice Abbott, whose own career and reputation is remarkably tangled up with Man Ray's. In Paris she worked for him as his darkroom assistant, shared his fascination for Eugene Atget's photographs, was fired by Man Ray (when Peggy Guggenheim called him on the telephone and requested a portrait sitting with her instead of him) and, until she moved back to the States in early 1929, competed with him for fashionable Paris portrait sitters. What I discovered in reading "Man Ray's Montparnasse" is that Lottman has not dug very deep into recently published scholarship, and thus perpetuates certain inaccuracies. For example, Lottman writes that Julien Levy, a mutual friend of Man Ray and Abbott, loaned Abbott money to purchase the Atget's archive in 1927, shortly after Atget's death. In fact, Levy did not invest in the Atget archive until 1930, three years later. Perhaps this seems like a minor detail, but for me it raises questions about the accuracy of the entire project. Moreover, other recent scholars have gotten this detail right, including Bonnie Yochelson in her 1997 book on Abbott, "Berenice Abbott: Changing New York: The Complete WPA Project" and Ingrid Schaffner in "Julien Levy: Portrait of an Art Gallery" (1998). For those interested in a more scholarly treatment of Man Ray's life and work, I highly recommend Neil Baldwin's 1988 "Man Ray: American Artist." For those fascinated by Paris in the early 20th century, I suggest Billy Kluver and Julie Martin's richly illustrated "Kiki's Paris: Artists and Lovers 1900-1930." ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Definitely not an "Object to be Destroyed"
Man Ray was a superbly inventive photographer able to ignore the borders bewtween art & commercial photography. Originally published in 1934 as "Photographs by Man Ray 1920 Paris 1934," this collection is an excellent look at his photo work during his most adventurous years. The book is divided into five sections: general subjects; the female figure; women's faces; celebrity portraits; rayographs.

Man Ray's female figures are an offbeat take on the male gaze in which the processes are as sexy as the women. Along with his female faces, they demonstrate why Man Ray was much in demand by fashionable magazines. The "celebrity" portraits are of his fellow male artists & writers, with the exception of Gertrude Stein - who can hardly be glamorized anyway. The rayographs were created by placing objects directly on film, but the experimental nature of Man Ray's art is seen throughout this inexpensive book from Dover Publications. Picasso, Eluard, Breton, Tzara & Rrose Selavy a.k.a. Marcel Duchamp contributed texts. Highly recommended.

Bob Rixon

Love this book!
As with so many Dover books, 105 Works is a great bargain ... Read more

Book Description

Man Ray (1890-1976), was one of the co-founders of New York Dada. When he arrived in Paris in the 1920s he was already friends with Duchamp and many Parisian Surrealists, who welcomed him with great enthusiasm. He is unquestionably recognized as the most original photographer of our century.

With his photographs, Rayographs, solarizations, and various experimentation with Surrealist doctrines in the darkroom, his photographic contribution to art and especially surrealism is matchless. Thanks to his famous portraits of contemporaries - artists, writers and celebrities - he also became the most notable chronicler of the inter-national Avant-garde movement of the 1920s and 1930s.

This remarkable monograph published to coincide with the historic exhibition at the Centre Pompidou, is entirely dedicated to Man Ray's photographic oeuvre. The Centre Pompidou is the recipient of the Man Ray archives - some 13,000 negatives and 5,000 prints - which reveal for the very first time never before published photographs (a great amount consisting of erotic compositions).

One-third of these photographs have never been seen.

Not only the finished photos, but also the process - crops, background manipulation and other methods. The book with its new images presents for the very first time a true picture of the artist, and a vital addition to the many publications about Man Ray that appeared throughout this century, many of which are long out of print. This monograph is a must for Man Ray experts, for those interested in photography, and a wonderful introduction to students and others not yet sufficiently familiar with Man Ray's work. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

A Pleasing Book
I bought this book expecting an immense variety of photos true to Man Ray's hodgepodge style. What I got was a series of very nice photos that were not quite what I expected. The length of this volume belies it's lack of variation. Most of the book is female nudes, which are very well done, but if you are looking for a book which includes photos of Parisian street life in the 1920's or the campy world of drag queens and surrealists, this is not the book for you. There are some photos of dancers and the like but most of the photos are pretty straightforward nudes who are in arty positions that get dull after a while. This not the book for newcomers to Man Ray nor is it one for those who would like to see truly weird looking pictures. There are some really cool photos here, like Meret Oppenheim in the Erotique Voile series and the rayographs featured. But a substantial portion of the book is devoted to showing works in their original form and how they were cropped and tinkered with to produce final, polished images. This is neat for famous images such as Les Larmes (Tears), but otherwise can get boring. Overall, this is an excellent book for Man Ray experts as it does show many previously unreleased photos, but maybe not the right choice for the rest of us. I enjoyed it though, and I'm still glad I bought it.

Man Ray is the solarization king.
This book is an extroidinary collection of Man Ray's photographic work.His use of light, composition, and solarization is one of the best.This book allows the reader to understand Man Ray's direction and motivation. ... Read more

Book Description

"I paint what cannot be photographed, I photograph the things I don't want to paint....I would photograph an idea rather 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 thing for others when he went to live and work in Paris in 1921. This led to one of the most versatile careers in the history of photography, ranging from portraits of celebrated artists, musicians, and writers such as André Breton, Marcel Duchamp, Erik Satie, Arnold Schönberg, T. S. Eliot, and Gertrude Stein, to the pictures using light effects outside the camera for which he is famous (cliché-verres, rayographs, and solarizations). These photographs are among the most exciting and revealing manifestations of the profusely fertile artistic impulse that made Man Ray equally celebrated as a painter, sculptor, writer, and filmmaker. Besides many classic images, the book includes a number of photographs that had never been seen before, including portraits of Virginia Woolf and of Antonin Artaud and a large selection of erotic pictures. They add up to a truly revealing look at Man Ray, Jean Cocteau's "great poet of the darkroom." 347 duotone photographs. ... Read more

Book Description

Philadelphia-born Dadaist/Surrealist photographer and painter Man Ray (1890-1976) delighted in shocking viewers with works designed to amuse, annoy, bewilder, and mystify. This lush volume is a captivating look at the man who settled in Paris and became one of the most famous expatriate artists of the 20th century. ... Read more

Book Description

Three volumes from the Getty Museum's popular In Focus series are packaged together here, offering a handsome set of books on these important photographers: Andre Kertesz, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and Man Ray. All born in Europe, each photographer journeyed to the United States and made important contributions to the medium. The volume on Kertesz presents the Getty Museum's holdings of his work from his Budapest, Paris, and New York periods, while the images in the book on Bauhaus teacher Moholy-Nagy include his pioneering photomontages and camera-less "photograms." The Man Ray volume presents his inventive photographs taken in New York, Paris, and Los Angeles, including portraits and nudes, and his experimental work with Rayographs and solarization.Each volume in the In Focus series contains approximately fifty photographs, with commentaries, an introduction, a chronology, and a transcription of a colloquium on the photographer's life and work. ... Read more

Book Description

Reissued for the twenty-fifth anniversary of his death, the definitive biography of one of the most influential surrealists and a quintessential modernist figure-painter, sculptor, photographer, filmmaker, and collagist. ... Read more

Book Description

The publication of this volume coincides with the 25th anniversary of the death of Man Ray, one of the most interesting and eclectic avant-garde artists of the 20th-century, who made his name as one of the leading figures of American dadaism. He chose photography as his primary means of expression, utilizing it as an instrument capable of disconcerting the gaze in simple ways. The portraits and fashion photographs collected here demonstrate Man Ray's originality in revealing images of the body, and his constant search for beautiful forms that were also the intelligent expression of art's capacity to stimulate thought.Never frivolous or banal, Man Ray's photographs provoke delight, disturbance, disorientation, and, most of all, reflection. As Andre Breton, Man Ray's companion in the surrealist adventure, declared: "The portrait of a beloved should not only be an image to smile at, but an oracle to interrogate."

Essays by Cecilia Casorati.

66 duotones.

8.25 x 10.5 in. ... Read more

Book Description

During the first half of this century, Man Ray (1890-1976) again and again set the international Dada and Surrealist movements afire with his photographs, paintings, and objects. A friend of Marcel Duchamp and many other artists, Man Ray portrayed the creative elite of his time--Salvador Dali, Picasso, Luis Buuel, and James Joyce, among them. He founded modern object art and raised photography to the level at which it was recognized as being an artistic genre in its own right. In addition, he was an acute observer of his times and probably the most influential source of inspiration for the avant-garde movements of the 1920s and 1930s. Many of his works the most significant of which are presented in this book became artistic milestones of an entire epoch. The introductory essay is by the Italian art scholar and critic, Janus. ... Read more

Book Description

Masterful collection of 60 works by a supreme artist with an unerring ability to capture his subject’s personality on film. Revealing portraits of Jean Cocteau, Salvador Dalí, Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso and many other luminaries. New English translations of Introduction and captions.
... Read more