Fotograma man ray biography

Childhood

Man Ray was born as Emmanuel Radnitzky in 1890 to a Russian-Jewish immigrant family in Philadelphia. His tailor father and seamstress mother soon relocated the family to the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, where Ray spent most of his childhood.

His family changed their surname to Ray due to the fear of anti-Semitism.

Fotograma man ray biography book

His name evolved to Man Ray after shortening his nickname, Manny, to Man. He kept his family background secret for most of his career, though the influence of his parents' occupations is evident in many of his works.

In high school, Ray learned freehand drawing, drafting and other basic techniques of architecture and engineering.

He also excelled in his art class. Though he hated the special attention from his art teacher, he still frequented art museums and studied on his own the works of the Renaissance Masters like Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Titian, and Caravaggio.

Such self-motivation