Man Ray (Emmanuel Radnitzky;
August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was a visual artist who spent most of his
career in Paris. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealist
movements, although his ties to each were informal. He produced major works in
a variety of media but considered himself a painter above all. He was best
known for his photography, and he was a renowned fashion and portrait
photographer. Man Ray is also noted for his work with photograms, which he
called "rayographs" in reference to himself.
Ray’s assembled collages were
linked to jazz with their improvised forms and rhythmic colors. A decade after
the collages were made, they were replicated as stencil-colored prints in
Paris, where Man Ray had settled in 1921. The portfolio was issued by Éditions
Surréalistes, the publishing arm of the emergent Surrealist writers and artists
of whom Man Ray was a leader.