Self-Portrait (Penguin Modern Classics)

This autobiography of Man Ray, photographer, painter and maker of objects and films, follows his life from his birth in Philadelphia in 1890 to his death in Paris in 1976. He knew the world of Greenwich Village in the avant-garde era following the 1913 Armory Show; Paris in the 1920s and 1930s, where he played a key role in the Dada and Surrealist movements; Hollywood in the 1940s, when compelled by war to flee Europe, and Paris where he lived from 1951 until his death. The book is illustrated with many previously unpublished works of art, photographs and negatives made available by Man Ray's wife, Juliet, who writes the afterword to the book. Man Ray describes his friendships with, among others, Marcel Duchamp, Picasso and Dali and the women in his life, including Kiki de Montparnasse and Lee Miller and his wife.