Coco Chanel by Man Ray, 1935
David Galenson: “A survey of textbooks reveals that scholars consider Alfred Stieglitz to have been the greatest photographer of the twentieth century, followed in order by Walker Evans, Cindy Sherman, Man Ray, and Eugène Atget. Stieglitz, Evans, and Atget were experimental artists, who were committed to realism, whereas Man Ray and Sherman were conceptual innovators, who constructed images to express ideas.”
There is currently an exhibition of Man Ray work in the Jewish Museum in New York. Man Ray AKA Emmanuel “Many” Radnitzky (1890-1976) was born in Philadelphia but spent most of his life in the bohemian Paris, chased out of Europe by the Nazis, he eventually returned to Paris after the war. He literally took a photographic portrait of every important author or artist in the prewar Europe. He also invented the kinetic sculpture, long before his buddy Marcel Duchamp. Man Ray left a significant mark on both Surrealism and Dada in addition to the groundbreaking photography. If you are near Manhattan, go connect with Man Ray at the Jewish Museum, he was a good man.