Born Emmanuel Radnitzky, the artist known as Man Ray (18901976) revealed multiple artistic identities over the course of his careerNew York Dadaist, Parisian Surrealist, international portraitist, and fashion photographerand produced important works as a photographer, painter, filmmaker, writer, and maker of objects. Alias Man Ray considers how the artists life and career were shaped by his turn-of-the-century American Jewish immigrant experience and his lifelong evasion of his past.
As an exploration of the artists deliberate cultural ambiguity, which allowed him to become the first American artist to be accepted by the Paris avant garde, this book examines the dynamic connection between Man Rays working-class origins, his assimilation, the evolution of his art, and his willful construction of his own artistic persona, as evidenced in a series of subtle, encrypted self-references throughout the artists career.Beautifully illustrated, Alias Man Ray will stand as a definitive study of an incomparable figure in 20th-century art.
