11.04. | Man Ray, Visionary of Surrealism

Forget technique. Forget the rules. It's time to discover the artist inside you.

Have you ever wondered how Henri Cartier-Bresson, master of the decisive moment, saw the world? Or how Brassaï felt the pulse of Paris at night? What if, for one month, you could look at the world through their eyes?

This is not an ordinary photography course. It is a ten-month adventure, a journey back to photography's golden age. From September to June, every month we step into the world of a legendary photographer with the help of art historian and museologist Dávid Balogh. We don't simply analyse their pictures: we experience their era, adopt their way of seeing, and create work in their style. You can find details about the adult education programme here.

So let's begin.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, art lovers and surrealists!

Prepare yourselves, because tonight we're talking about Man Ray, one of the most iconic figures of the 20th century: the son of American immigrants, a man in love with painting, and a photographer who became famous through photography while spending much of his life insisting that he wasn't really a photographer at all.

Introduction: The Photographer Who Didn't Want to Be a Photographer

Man Ray—born Emanuel Radnitzky—was born in Philadelphia and grew up in Brooklyn. His parents (his father was a tailor) may have hoped he would choose a respectable profession, but Emanuel was drawn to art. Imagine the family tension when young Emanuel brought a nude model home to his studio.

After changing his name to Man Ray to distance himself from his past, he moved to Paris, the epicentre of Dada and Surrealism. He belonged among those who overturned convention and declared artistic anarchy.

“I started taking photographs because I wanted to photograph my own work and couldn't find a good commercial photographer.”

And so the absurdity was born: Man Ray the painter made his living by becoming a first-rate photographer, even though he continued to focus on painting throughout his life, partly because he wanted to escape the label of being “just a photographer”.

Dadaist Tricks, Tomorrow's Truths

Even when people didn't understand Man Ray, his friends—many of whom would become Surrealists—at least accepted him. He explored absurdity, chaos and contradiction, constantly pushing at boundaries.

His view was simple: what seems like a trick today may become tomorrow's truth.

Let's look at a few of those “tricks”.

The Gift (1921): An ordinary iron with a row of tacks attached to its soleplate. Why? To turn something useful into something useless. Man Ray believed that once people accepted both the title and the object, it left them “slightly confused”—and that the mystery should remain.

Self-Portrait: He attached a real push button and two electric bells to an image. The viewer almost inevitably presses the button and thereby becomes part of the work. Did the bells ring? No. Man Ray's response, in essence: that's what makes it art.

Rayographs: The Brilliantly Lazy Invention

Being Man Ray, he devised a technique that allowed him to dispense with the camera altogether: the rayograph. He placed objects directly on photographic paper and exposed them to light, producing abstract images.

He even brought the idea into filmmaking. When Tristan Tzara asked him to make an avant-garde film overnight, Man Ray took 100 feet of film, cut it up and sprinkled it with salt, pepper, pins and thumbtacks. The result? Chaos. The audience reportedly started fighting because the film was painful to watch. Man Ray was delighted.

Commercial Success Among Artists and Princesses

Paris offered more than angry Dadaists. Man Ray became known for iconic portraits of the legends of 1920s Paris: Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, Igor Stravinsky and, of course, Pablo Picasso.

When someone entered his studio, Man Ray decided on the crop before taking the picture and usually made only two or three exposures—four at most. He felt that photographing a human face gave him a certain kind of power.

For financial survival, Man Ray also turned to fashion photography. As a favourite supported by the Vicomtesse de Noailles, he gained enough freedom to make avant-garde films. Then came the harder years of the 1930s:

“I often bartered for food; I got a refrigerator, and I even bartered for dental treatment. So there are probably a few Man Rays in dentists' offices around Paris.”

The Art of Living and the Fate of Neckties

How, according to Man Ray, do you become original? “Easy,” he said in effect: just be yourself, and you'll be original. And when people claimed that he was ahead of his time, his answer was equally characteristic: he wasn't out of step with his era—the others were simply behind.

During the Second World War, when he had to flee to America, he travelled to California with a necktie salesman. The salesman kept fussing with his ties so relentlessly that, at the end of a journey said to have felt endless, Man Ray threw away all his ties and began wearing shoelaces instead. Please don't try this at home.

His life was full of love affairs. His turbulent relationship with Lee Miller—his student, lover and, at times, his tormentor—inspired the famous painting Observatory Time – The Lovers, in which enormous lips float freely across the sky, as if finally released from loss.

And if we look back at his life and at everything brilliant he created—photographs, paintings, absurd objects—what gave the artist the greatest satisfaction?

Part of the BANHALMI ecosystem

For the professional context and practical side of portrait photography, visit the BANHALMI professional website. Related art series, books and exhibitions are preserved in the BANHALMI ART archive.