Man Ray Portraits opens at London’s National Portrait Gallery

Tomor­row, an import­ant new exhib­i­tion opens devoted to one of the most innov­at­ive and influ­en­tial artists of his gen­er­a­tion: over 150 vin­tage prints from Man Ray’s career taken between 1916 and 1968 have been gathered together at the National Por­trait Gal­lery in London.

Drawn from private col­lec­tions and major museums includ­ing the Pomp­idou Centre, the J. Paul Getty Museum and New York’s The Museum of Mod­ern Art and Met­ro­pol­itan Museum of Art, and spe­cial loans from the Man Ray Trust Archive, the major­ity of the works have not pre­vi­ously been exhib­ited in the United Kingdom.

Por­traits of Man Ray’s cel­eb­rated con­tem­por­ar­ies are shown along­side his per­sonal and often intim­ate por­traits of friends, lov­ers and his social circle. His ver­sat­il­ity and exper­i­ment­a­tion as an artist is illus­trated through­out his pho­to­graphy although this was never his chosen prin­cipal artistic medium. An impress­ive list of pho­to­graphic por­traits of cul­tural fig­ures and friends includ­ing Mar­cel Duch­amp, Berenice Abbott, Andre Bre­ton, Jean Cocteau, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, James Joyce, Erik Satie, Henri Matisse, Barb­ette, Igor Strav­in­sky, YvesT­an­guy, Sal­vador Dali, Le Cor­busier, Vir­ginia Woolf, Aldous Hux­ley, Coco Chanel and Wal­lis Simpson, can be seen.

Man Ray was born in Phil­adelphia in 1890 and spent his early life in New York, turn­ing down a schol­ar­ship to study archi­tec­ture in order to devote him­self to paint­ing. He ini­tially taught him­self pho­to­graphy in order to repro­duce his works of art but in 1920 he began to work as a por­trait pho­to­grapher to fund his artwork.

In 1915, whilst at Ridge­field artist colony in New Jer­sey, he met the French artist Mar­cel Duch­amp and together they tried to estab­lish New York Dada. His friend­ship with Duch­amp led to Man Ray’s move to Paris in 1921, where, as a con­trib­utor to the Dada and Sur­real­ist move­ments, he was per­fectly placed to make defin­ing images of his con­tem­por­ar­ies from the avant-garde. In this period he was instru­mental in devel­op­ing and pro­du­cing a type of pho­to­gram which he called ‘Rayographs’, and is cred­ited in redis­cov­er­ing and devel­op­ing, along­side his lover and col­lab­or­ator Lee Miller, the pro­cess of sol­ar­isa­tion. This can be seen in the exhib­i­tion in the por­traits of Elsa Schiaparelli, Irene Zur­kinden, Lee Miller, Suzy Solidor and his own Self-Portrait with Camera.

Fol­low­ing the out­break of World War II, Man Ray left France for the USA and took up res­id­ence in Hol­ly­wood. While offi­cially devot­ing him­self once more to paint­ing, new research has revealed that Man Ray made a num­ber of sig­ni­fic­ant pho­to­graphic por­traits dur­ing his Hol­ly­wood years, and sev­eral are shown for the first time in this exhib­i­tion. Film star sub­jects included Ruth Ford, Paul­ette God­dard, Ava Gard­ner, Tilly Losch and Dolores del Rio. Return­ing to Paris in 1951 he again made the city his home until his death in 1976. His por­traits from the 1950s include exper­i­ments with col­our pho­to­graphy, such as his por­traits of Juli­ette Greco and Yves Mont­and, and the exhib­i­tion closes with his por­trait of film star Cath­er­ine Den­euve from 1968.

The exhib­i­tion opens tomor­row, 7 Feb­ru­ary, and runs until 27 May 2013.

Photo: Man Ray self-portrait, 1932

Gift Aid admis­sion £14. Con­ces­sions £13 / £12
Stand­ard price admis­sion £12.70. Con­ces­sions £11.80/£10.90
Tick­ets: www.npg.org.uk

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