Man Ray - Marcel Duchamp as Rrose Sélavy - Heliogravure

Man Ray : (1890-1976) born Emmanuel Radinsky, is a painter, photographer, director, and main actor of dadaism in New York, and then surrealism in Paris. He is a central figure of the avant-gardes of the XXth century. Along with Marcel Duchamp, he formed the American part of the Dada movement, until he realised that “Dada cannot live in New York”, because of its puritian atmosphere at the time. In the beginning of the 20’s, Man Ray went to France, in Paris, and met the surrealists via Marcel Duchamp: Louis Aragon, André Breton, Paul Eluard among others. He settled in Montparnasse and meets his muse, the notorious Kiki de Montparnasse. In 1925, he presented his works with the surrealists at the galerie Pierre in Paris. It is really through the art of photography that Man Ray made his name: for more than 30 years he revolutionized photography, and contributed to valorize the great pioneers of the History of photography that preceded him. In the beginning of the WWII, he left France to go back to America, joined by Salvador and Gala Dali, and René Clair. He spent the rest of his life in Hollywood, and was buried in 1976 at the Montparnasse cemetery, going back to his artistic roots, with the following epitaph “Unconcerned but not indifferent”.