ART + WINE + CHEESE: Happy Birthday to the famous artist MAN RAY who revolutionized modern photography and was a leading figure in the Dada and Surrealist Movements

MAN RAY was born on this day in 1890 in Philadelphia PA as Emmanuel Radnitzky.  He was a pioneering American artist who played a vital role in the Dada and Surrealist movements. Relocating to Paris in 1921, he revolutionized photography with darkroom innovations like solarization and cameraless “rayographs”. He also created iconic sculptural assemblages and experimental films, leaving a massive impact on 20th-century art.  Man Ray began his career in New York before joining the avant-garde scene in Europe.  Man Ray was represented in the first Surrealist exhibition with Jean Arp, Giorgio de Chirico, Max Ernst, Georges Malkine, André Masson, Joan Miró and Pablo Picasso at the Galerie Pierre in Paris in 1925.  

We will feature a print of Man Ray’s monumental painting titled Observatory Time—The Lovers, 1936 (or as it has become more familiarly known–The Lips).  This painting has been described as the quintessential Surrealist painting–and its title exemplifies Gertrude Stein’s insistence upon embodying “time in the composition.”  The canvas was eight feet long and over three feet high, and it took Man Ray two years of meticulous, daily work to get it right.