Bio on May Ray
...eglitz at an art gallery in New York. Stieglitz was an unapologetic missionary for modern European art. Stieglitz goal was to introduce the American public to the Cubist works of Picasso, Rodin, Cézanne, Renoir and Van Gogh. After meeting Stieglitz and experiencing the art photography at the gallery, Ray became fascinated about art photography and learned more about it from a man from Paris named Robert Henri at the Ferrer School in 1912. While studying photography, Ray became stunned from learning about an artist called Marcel Duchamp who had a radical style of photography. In one of Duchamp’s picture consisted of a nude women descending in a staircase in 1913. This radical style stayed in the head of Ray and he was curious about this man. Once Ray completed school we went back to Philadelphia to find work. He found work in photography taking many photography jobs in and around the Philadelphia area. Not only did he find work but he also met his first wife Adon Lacroix who was from Belgium. She was married before but was divorced with one child. She was lonely and Ray kept her company, becoming close friends and soon marrying in 1914. Soon after marrying Ray and his wife moved to Ridgefield New Jersey to continue his art work. Soon after he moved to New York City where Ray opened up a portrait studio where he took pictures of his friends. Ray constantly went to art galleries looking at new work and meeting new people. Soon after attending these galleries he met a man Marcel Duchamp. Duchamp was a photographer in Europe and was in New York working on Photography. Marcel and Ray became good friends as Ray new about him by studying him in his past at school. The two men went to galleries and studied the work of each other and other art photographers. Working together and exploring ideas with photography, Ray started to experiment with different kinds of photography. He started experimenting with a photographic process. In 1917 he revived the cliché-verre, which is a process for making a drawing on a glass negative with a needle point, drawing then it is printed on a sensitized paper. Ray had new ideas and mixed old ways with new ways. The two men were beginning to be recognized in the New York area making beautiful forms of art. People have never seen this kind of art before and were becoming fascinated in this new art. With there new ideas Ray and Duchamp decided to open a museum in New York. They opened up the first modern museum in America. It was called the Societe Anonyme museum which consisted of work from famous artists around the world from Wassily, Kandinsky, Fern, Legar and Joseph Stella who was introduced at the museum. Ray and Duchamp were the closest friends meeting all kinds of artists in the New York area and from around the world. From 1916-1920 the two men became famous, with their work and by meeting people at parties, art galleries and other social events. This was the beginning for Man Ray climbing the famous later. After attending all sorts of art galleries and doing his poems, oil paintings and sculpturing, Ray started to work more on his photography. Being busy with all his work and going to museums, his marriage was falling apart. In 1921 Man Ray left New York for Europe. Once in Paris Ray found work soon as a fashion photographer. He did not do much photography taking before, but the work he did was great and it seemed like he had been doing it everyday for his whole life. Ray did fashion photography for some time in Europe in the 1920’s for Vanity Fair and Vogue. In 1922 while experimenting once again with photography, Ray discovered a different kind of process in photography. The new process consisted of objects on a sensitized sheet of paper, under which light produced an image of shadows and an additional three dimensional quality with tone gradation was exemplified. Put in a different way this new idea that Ray developed made photography look fluid and dynamic as painting seemed, constrained, static and old fashioned. This new process was known as the Rayograph. This was Ray’s biggest discovery ever. Photographers around the world soon started to use the Rayograoph with photography. In 1922, Ray produced a book on Rayographs called Les Champs Delicieux. At this point he was making very good money. Being recognized where ever he went Ray had no problem meeting women. Breaking up with his wife Adon, Ray was free to explore, and did he ever. In Paris Ray met Alice Prin, otherwise known as Kiki. The two soon fell in love and Ray started a different kind of photography, taking pictures of women. Alice was the first female he took pictures of. Ray focused on different areas of the female body, taking close ups of a women’s, mouth, face or breasts. The erotic pictures brought up controversy, especially at that tim...