Man Ray: The Artist and His Shadows

by Arthur Lubow

Overview

A biography of the elusive but celebrated Dada and Surrealist artist and photographer connecting his Jewish background to his life and art

Man Ray (1890–1976), a founding father of Dada and a key player in French Surrealism, is one of the central artists of the twentieth century. He is also one of the most elusive. In this new biography, journalist and critic Arthur Lubow uses Man Ray’s Jewish background as one filter to understand his life and art.
 
Man Ray began life as Emmanuel Radnitsky, the eldest of four children born in Philadelphia to a mother from Minsk and a father from Kiev. When he was seven the family moved to the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, where both parents worked as tailors. Defying his parents’ expectations that he earn a university degree, Man Ray instead pursued his vocation as an artist, embracing the modernist creed of photographer and avant-garde gallery owner Alfred Stieglitz.

When at the age of thirty Man Ray relocated to Paris, he, unlike Stieglitz, made a clean break with his past.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780300237214
Publisher:	Yale University Press
Publication date:	09/14/2021
Series:	Jewish Lives
Pages:	216
Sales rank:	1,098,537
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Arthur Lubow is a journalist and critic who has been a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine and a staff writer at the New Yorker. His latest book is Diane Arbus: Portrait of a Photographer.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Man Ray and His Shadows 1

1 The Radnitsky Clan 6

2 Alfred Stieglitz and the Avant-Garde 14

3 Adon 22

4 Charles Daniel 32

5 Marcel Duchamp 39

6 Tristan Tzara and Francis Picabia 49

7 Everybody Who Rated as Somebody 61

8 Kiki 71

9 André Breton and Paul Éluard 80

10 Lee Miller 89

11 Meret Oppenheim 106

12 Juliet Browner 117

13 William Copley 125

14 Man Ray's Own Shadow 135

15 The Shadow of Death 148

Epilogue: The Afterlife 156

Acknowledgments 163

Notes 165

Index 177

Illustrations follow pages 38 and 142.

Editorial Reviews

[Lubow] ingeniously captures one of the twentieth century’s most enigmatic artists.”—New Yorker

“Graceful and compact...Lubow’s evocation of Man Ray is full of insights, often dramatic, and is heartfelt on the artist’s friendship with Duchamp.”—David D’Arcy, Art Newspaper

“An exceptional gem is hereby added to the Jewish Lives crown. With charm and élan—and heroic erudition—Arthur Lubow captures the elusive, protean Man Ray.”—Benjamin Taylor, author of Proust: The Search
 

From the Publisher