Self-portrait with Half-Beard, 1943, Gelatin silver print, 7 1/8 x 5 1/8 inches

A quintessential modernist, Man Ray recast the concept of artistic identity by working as a painter, photographer, sculptor, printmaker, filmmaker, poet, and essayist. He utilized techniques not normally associated with fine art: airbrushing paintings, exposing objects on light-sensitive paper to create “rayographs.” Looking back in history, his fame as a photographer overshadowed his accomplishments as a painter. Born Emmanuel Radnitzky he wanted to escape the limitations of his Russian Jewish immigrant past. He moved to Paris in 1921 and was the only American living among the European avant-garde. He created a public persona that assisted him in his desire to gain notoriety while also shrouding himself in oblivion. While living in Paris he photographed other artists to make money as he could not survive on his own painting.

It was wonderful to see the scope of his work (The Jewish Museum curators do an amazing job with their manageable and well-executed shows). In 1913, Ray attended the Armory Show in NY and it had a profound effect on him. He did not create art for 6 months because, he claimed, it took him that long to digest what he had seen. Early paintings on view include a Madonna, a work called Man Ray 1914, and works from his “Revolving Door Series” from 1916-17. Man Ray 1914 was painted at the time he had met the Belgian avant-garde poet Adon Lacroix who introduced him to a new set of artists and ideas. It was also at this time that he moved to an artists’ colony in Ridgefield, New Jersey.Though small, this painting is hugely important as it marks a shift for Ray in which he moves into creating works that are drastically different than his American peers. There are Cubist elements to the work, but the letters M-A-N  R-A-Y are clearly written in the center of the composition filled with pinks, blues, yellows, and grays.

Revolving Doors is made up of collage elements and stamps in earth tones of red, oranges, sepia, and taupe and these are lovely intimate works. In 1926 he created the works as a series of prints and in the 1940s as oil paintings.

Moving Sculpture, 1920

An interesting pairing of works is a painting called Flying Dutchman from 1920 hanging next to a photograph called, Moving Sculpture also from 1920. In the black and white photograph, sheets hang from clotheslines blowing in the wind. The colorful painting transforms the sheets to abstracted white forms (clearly based on the photo but without which the viewer could not recognize that they are actual objects).

Interior, 1918

In Interior Ray challenges the notion of conventional painting technique by using airbrushing. The work is a stylized depiction of his studio including his early Madonna painting in the background as well as a dressmaker’s dummy which is a nod to his father, a tailor.

In 1921, by moving to Paris Man Ray was welcomed by Dadaists and embraced by Surrealists but never officially aligned himself with either group. By the 1930s he was very successful as a commercial photographer which few artists did at that time. His photos graced the pages of Vogue and Vanity Fair magazines and this was how he earned a living. As Man Ray in his own words expressed his photos, “deform the subject as almost to hide the identity of the original, and create a new form.” He cropped, used multiple exposures, and created rayographs in which he placed objects on a sheet of paper and turned on the light. Shadowy forms appeared and everyday objects were rendered mysterious and ambiguous in form. Ray liked them because they offered a more direct relationship to subjects than traditional photography. They almost look like x-rays but instead of seeing more, things are made less clear. I love the small photo Self-Portrait in His Studio at 31 bis rue Campagne Premiere, Paris from 1925. The viewer sees Ray, his image a bit blurred due to his movement at the time of exposure, but every detail of his studio is crisp and clear–paintings, camera, staircase, hat, rug. It is a view into his most personal world.

Stills from Le retour a la raison

Le retour a la raison is a black and white 2 minute silent film from 1923, Ray’s first. He does not use a movie camera to create the work but cut unused film into strips, sprinkling it with salt and pepper, pins, thumbtacks, and developing it as a rayograph. It outraged viewers at the time but it is a mesmerizing and titillating piece of moving abstracted forms.

Anatomies, 1929

Anatomies from 1929 captures a woman’s neck as she leans back. Her chin becomes the top of the composition, a shaded line runs down her throat to her clavicle. It is abstracted but recognizable. It is sensual and erotic but also graceful and stunningly simplistic.

In Hier (part of a photo collage triptych) from 1931, Kiki de Montparnasse (a lover and muse of Man Ray’s) is the model. The small colored circles that are placed in strategic places on her  body remind me of John Baldessari’s circles that cover the faces of found film stills in some of his work.

Gertrude Stein portrait

There is a wall of portraits that Ray took in the show that is wonderful. It includes images of Gertrude Stein (siting in front of Picasso’s painted portrait of her), Marcel Duchamp, Lee Miller, and Andre Breton to name a few.

La Fortune, 1938

By June 1940, Ray had fled to the United States and moved to Hollywood to get as far away as he could from NYC. At this time due to what was happening in Europe, Ray had to face his Jewishness and felt exposed during this time of his life which was very uncomfortable for him. This manifests itself in his paintings from this period. La Fortune from 1938 shows a massive billiard table on an awkward slant surrounded by storm clouds in primary colors.

Winter, 1944

Winter from 1944 was inspired by an Italian Renaissance master and by making a figure from other things, he was able to hide on some level. Masks were a common subject for Ray during the 1940s. At the end of his career he returned to perspectival drawings that he had done at the very beginning of his schooling.

Ray said, “Anybody who does creative arts is a sacred person.” This show on view until March 14th highlights his contributions to art history and his sacredness.