| Description: | Iron multile with copper nails. Man Ray's Cadeau optimizes the strange and often disturbing dysfunctionality of the Surrealist object. Created after a few drinks on the day of the opening of his first solo exhibition in Paris in 1921, the original work was intended as a gift for the gallery owners, but was stolen during the show. In 1974 Man Ray authorized an edition of multiples of his Cadeau, resurfacing his legendary first ready made. Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky) was an american artist mostly widely recognized for his innovative photographic techniques and intriguing photographing style. He was a contributor to both the Dada and the surrealist movement and was a very important figure in popularization of Surrealism. While technical experiments with a camera are now what he is primarily remembered for , Man ray always regarded himself first and foremost as a painter. Born in 1890, Ray grew up in New York. He was exposed to the work of European Avant-garde artists such as Pablo Picasso and George Braque at Alfred Stieglitz gallery. He was a lifelong friend of Marcel Duchamp and moved to Paris in 1915 where he met Andre Breton and the other Surrealists in the early 1920s. Alongside his profound contribution to fashion photography, Man Ray also pioneered the medium, creating what he called "Rayographs": made by exposing photosensitive paper directly to light. Rayographs or pictograms as they are also referred t , are essentially camera-less photographs. Any object placed on the paper will have a white silhouette, while the exposed areas will be left black. The resulting effect is often deathless and surreal, enabling a new way of seeing. In 1974, just before his death in 1976, Man Ray was awarded the Royal Photographic Society's progress medal. |
