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Man Ray

Man Ray, Self-Portrait with Half Beard, 1943 Vintage silver print, 7 ⅛ × 5 ⅛ inches (18.1 × 13 cm)© Man Ray Trust/ADAGP 2018

Man Ray, Self-Portrait with Half Beard, 1943

Vintage silver print, 7 ⅛ × 5 ⅛ inches (18.1 × 13 cm)
© Man Ray Trust/ADAGP 2018

About

Over the course of his storied career, Man Ray created work spanning a variety of mediums: painting, photography, sculpture, printmaking, film, poetry, and prose. His work aligned variously with Cubism, Futurism, Dada, and Surrealism—all the while retaining its own distinct style. Man Ray is most noted for his profound body of photographic works, which encompass fashion, portraiture, and technical experimentation such as solarization and the widely celebrated photograms or “rayographs”: the artist created these compelling images without a camera, arranging found objects onto sheets of photosensitive paper and exposing them to light. The rayographs wavered between representation and concept, epitomizing the indeterminate forces that have come to define his vast oeuvre. Alluding to relationships between the real and the fictive, Man Ray commanded a deft mastery over the liminal territory between the abstract and figurative form.

Man Ray was born in 1890 in Philadelphia, and died in 1976 in Paris. His work is held in the collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Centre Pompidou, Paris; and Israel Museum, Jerusalem, among others. Recent solo exhibitions include Alias Man Ray: The Art of Reinvention, Jewish Museum, New York (2009–10); Man Ray Portraits, National Portrait Gallery, London (2013); and Man Ray—Human Equations, Phillips Collection, Washington, DC (2015).

Man Ray

Photo: Album/Alamy Stock Photo

Website

manraytrust.com

Black-and-white photograph of two women having breakfast in bed and reading newspapers with a tapestry of an abstracted face hanging on the wall behind them

A Flat on Rue Victor-Considerant

Lee Miller and Tanja Ramm’s friendship took them from New York to Paris and back, in front of and behind many cameras, and into the Surrealist avant-garde. Here, Gagosian director Richard Calvocoressi speaks with Ramm’s daughter, art historian Margit Rowell, about discovering her mother’s early life, her memories of Miller, and the collaborative work of photographers and models.

Andrea Domenico Remps, Cabinet of Curiosities, c. 1690, oil on canvas, 39 × 54 inches (99 × 137 cm), Opificio delle Pietre Dure, Florence, Italy.

For Sale: Baby Shoes. Never Worn.

Sydney Stutterheim meditates on the power and possibilities of small-format artworks throughout time.

The cover of the Spring 2020 edition of the Gagosian Quarterly magazine. A Cindy Sherman photograph of herself dressed as a clown against a rainbow background.

Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Spring 2020

The Spring 2020 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Cindy Sherman’s Untitled #412 (2003) on its cover.

Vertical film strips from Man Ray's films.

The Films of Man Ray: Mysterious Encounters of Realities and Dreams

Timothy Baum muses on Man Ray’s foray into filmmaking in the 1920s, the subject of the exhibition Man Ray: The Mysteries of Château du Dé at Gagosian, San Francisco. 

Cover of the Winter 2019 Gagosian Quarterly, featuring a selection from a black-and-white Christopher Wool photograph

Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Winter 2019

The Winter 2019 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring a selection from Christopher Wool’s Westtexaspsychosculpture series on its cover.

Man Ray: Visual Poet and Wit

Man Ray: Visual Poet and Wit

At the 2018 Frieze Masters fair in London, Gagosian’s stand presented more than ninety works by Man Ray: objects and assemblages, collages, oils, prints, drawings, and photographs. Richard Calvocoressi traces the development of the artist’s wide-ranging work and looks at his legendary three-year collaboration with Lee Miller.

Exiles in Paradise

Gagosian Quarterly Talks
Exiles in Paradise

Lawrence Weschler profiles the European exiles in Los Angeles during the 1930s and ’40s, examining how cultural visionaries, from Man Ray to Arnold Schoenberg, navigated the dramatic change in setting.

Man Ray’s LA

Man Ray’s LA

Timothy Baum explores this period of transition in response to an exhibition of Man Ray’s vintage gelatin silver photographs from his “Hollywood” period.

Gagosian Quarterly Spring 2018

Gagosian Quarterly Spring 2018

The Spring 2018 Gagosian Quarterly with a cover by Ed Ruscha is now available for order.

Art and Food

Art and Food

Mary Ann Caws and Charles Stuckey discuss the presence of food and the dining table in the history of modern art.

Man Ray

Man Ray

In the early 1980s, Ira Nowinski visited a studio frozen in time.

Sprayed: An Interview with Peter Stevens

Sprayed: An Interview with Peter Stevens

Harnessing the gestural, unpredictable, projectile qualities of spray paint, artists have repurposed it as an alternative to the brush, to create hazy textures, drips, puddles, and graffiti-like text. Peter Stevens discusses this history of spray paint as an artistic medium with Alison McDonald.

Fairs, Events & Announcements

Gagosian’s booth at TEFAF New York Spring 2022. Artwork, left to right: © Man Ray 2015 Trust/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris 2022; © Urs Fischer. Photo: Ariel Roubino

Art Fair

TEFAF New York Spring 2022
Urs Fischer and Man Ray

May 6–10, 2022, booth 350
Park Avenue Armory, New York
www.tefaf.com

Gagosian is pleased to announce its participation in TEFAF New York Spring 2022, with a special presentation juxtaposing works by Urs Fischer and Man Ray. Two artworks, hung in opposite corners of the stand, beckon to one another, engaging in a silent dialogue.

Gagosian’s booth at TEFAF New York Spring 2022. Artwork, left to right: © Man Ray 2015 Trust/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris 2022; © Urs Fischer. Photo: Ariel Roubino

Jeff Koons, Bluebird Planter, 2010–16 © Jeff Koons

Art Fair

FIAC Online 2021
Printemps oublié

March 2–12, 2021

Gagosian is pleased to present Printemps oublié for the first online edition of FIAC. This curated presentation reflects the dual character of springtime as a reminder of past trials and the harbinger of a vibrant new season to come.

All the artworks will appear on the Gagosian website and a rotating selection will appear in the inaugural FIAC Online Viewing Rooms, from March 4 to 7.

Jeff Koons, Bluebird Planter, 2010–16 © Jeff Koons

Installation view, Michael Craig-Martin: Sculpture, Gagosian, Britannia Street, London, May 31–August 23, 2019. Artwork © Michael Craig-Martin. Photo: Mike Bruce

Talk

In Focus
Michael Craig-Martin, Man Ray, Giuseppe Penone

Thursday, July 30, 2020, 12pm edt

Join Gagosian for a trio of online presentations to learn about the ways Michael Craig-Martin, Man Ray, and Giuseppe Penone approach three-dimensional form and its potential to change the way we engage with the world. Craig-Martin will speak about his own practice, while Max Teicher and Pepi Marchetti Franchi will each discuss the works of Man Ray and Penone respectively. To join, register at zoom.us.

Installation view, Michael Craig-Martin: Sculpture, Gagosian, Britannia Street, London, May 31–August 23, 2019. Artwork © Michael Craig-Martin. Photo: Mike Bruce

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Museum Exhibitions

Rick Lowe, Fire #4: This Time Athens, 2023, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC © Rick Lowe Studio

Just Opened

Revolutions
Art from the Hirshhorn Collection, 1860–1960

Through April 20, 2025
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC
hirshhorn.si.edu

Revolutions is a major survey of 270 artworks by 126 artists from the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden’s permanent collection. Celebrating the museum’s fiftieth anniversary, the exhibition aims to capture the shifting cultural landscapes of a century defined by new currents in science and philosophy and ever-increasing mechanization. Shown alongside these historic works are contributions from nineteen contemporary artists whose practices demonstrate how many revolutionary ideas from a hundred years ago remain critical today. Work by Francis Bacon, Amoako Boafo, Alexander Calder, Willem de Kooning, Helen FrankenthalerRick LoweSally Mann, Man Ray, Henry MoorePablo PicassoNathaniel Mary Quinn, and Cy Twombly is included.

Rick Lowe, Fire #4: This Time Athens, 2023, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC © Rick Lowe Studio

Installation view, The Whitney’s Collection: Selections from 1900 to 1965, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, June 28, 2019–May 2022. Artwork, left to right: © 2020 The Jay DeFeo Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; © Norman Lewis; © 2020 The Franz Kline Estate/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Ron Amstutz

On View

The Whitney’s Collection
Selections from 1900 to 1965

Opened June 28, 2019
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
whitney.org

This exhibition of more than 120 works, drawn entirely from the Whitney’s collection, is inspired by the founding history of the museum. The Whitney was established in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney to champion the work of living American artists. A sculptor and a patron, Whitney recognized both the importance of contemporary American art and the need to support the artists who made it. The collection she assembled foregrounds how artists uniquely reveal the complexity and beauty of American life. Work by Jay DeFeo, Willem de Kooning, Roy Lichtenstein, Man Ray, Ed Ruscha, Andy Warhol, and Tom Wesselmann is included.

Installation view, The Whitney’s Collection: Selections from 1900 to 1965, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, June 28, 2019–May 2022. Artwork, left to right: © 2020 The Jay DeFeo Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; © Norman Lewis; © 2020 The Franz Kline Estate/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Ron Amstutz

Franz West, Paravents, 2010, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main, Germany © Archiv Franz West, © Estate Franz West. Photo: Wolfgang Günzel

Closed

Paraventi
Folding Screens from the 17th to 21st Centuries

October 26, 2023–February 22, 2024
Fondazione Prada, Milan
www.fondazioneprada.org

This exhibition investigates the histories and semantics of folding screens by tracing trajectories of cross-pollination between the East and the West, processes of hybridization between different art forms and functions, collaborations between designers and artists, and the emergence of new works. Paraventi presents more than seventy folding screens as well as a selection of contemporary projects, commissioned specifically for this show, by more than fifteen international artists. Work by Francis Bacon, Man Ray, Pablo PicassoJean Prouvé, Ed RuschaCy Twombly, and Franz West is included.

Franz West, Paravents, 2010, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main, Germany © Archiv Franz West, © Estate Franz West. Photo: Wolfgang Günzel

Gregory Crewdson, Untitled, 2005 © Gregory Crewdson

Closed

Photography’s Last Century
The Ann Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee Collection

February 17–May 21, 2023
Jepson Center, Telfair Museums, Savannah, Georgia
www.telfair.org

Photography’s Last Century celebrates the remarkable ascendancy of photography during the past hundred years, and Ann Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee’s promised gift of over sixty photographs to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where this exhibition originated. The collection is particularly notable for its breadth and depth of works by women artists, its sustained interest in the nude, and its focus on artists’ beginnings. Work by Gregory Crewdson, Andreas Gursky, Man Ray, Andy Warhol, and Rachel Whiteread is included. 

Gregory Crewdson, Untitled, 2005 © Gregory Crewdson

See all Museum Exhibitions for Man Ray