Author: Amanda Zhang

Amanda Zhang

Professor Hoffman

IDC 1001H

October 9, 2016

Man Ray

Man Ray was well known for his contributions to the Dada and Surrealist movements and was involved in all kinds of media as a painter and photographer among others.  Man Ray was born as Emmanuel Radnitzky on August 27, 1890 in Philadelphia.  He was born into a Russian Jewish family and had a younger brother and two younger sisters.  His mother was a seamstress and his father was a tailor (Jung).  This seemingly trivial fact actually had a significant impact on Man Ray’s work as an artist because he used materials associated with the occupation such as needles and threads in various forms.  When his family moved to Williamsburg in Brooklyn, they were compelled to change their family name due to the fear of anti-Semitism that was prevalent in that area around that time.  They changed their last name to Ray and Emmanuel became just Man, hence Man Ray.  Man Ray was not very open to the public about his family’s background or his childhood (Man Ray and His Artworks).  It was in high school where Man Ray cultivated his art skills as well as skills in architecture and engineering.  He also frequently visited museums and art galleries in New York City on his own and was attracted to the avant-garde art that originated in Europe.  He was offered a scholarship to study architecture but turned it down to pursue a career in the arts (Jung).  A few years later in 1912, he attended the Ferrer School.  This was where he found artists to look up to such as Robert Henri and Adolf Wolff.  He lived with Adolf Wolff in Manhattan for short period and then moved to an artist colony in New Jersey.  During this time, he frequently visited the 291 Gallery in New York City and became close with the gallery owner, Alfred Stieglitz.  It was Stieglitz who introduced Man Ray to the art of photography.  Man Ray had originally been influenced by cubism and expressionism.  Cubism abandoned the idea of perspective and instead used geometric shapes and objects to create art (Cubism).  Expressionism, on the other hand, tended to demonstrate a subjective rather than an objective view of one’s surroundings and to have those emotions appear in the art (Expressionism).  However, once Man Ray met Marcel Duchamp in 1915 and became friends with him, he was influenced by Duchamp and subsequently focused more on surrealism and Dadaism.  Surrealism rejected the rational mind and believed in releasing the unconscious mind as a means of creative imagination (Surrealism).  Dadaism was interesting because it wasn’t so much of art as it was a protest against society, politics, and cultural ideals at the time. Both art forms were 20^th century avant-garde movements and it shows Man Ray’s consistency in his desire for rejecting the standards and norms of art and wanting to create new art.  Together, Ray and Duchamp formed the New York Group of Dada artists, however this was a failure when Dadaism didn’t appeal to the public (Man Ray).  In 1916, they also started the Society of Independent Artists and in 1920 published one issue in in New York Dada (Jung).  Then in 1921, Man Ray moved to Paris, France and lived there for most of the rest of his life.  There, he continued contributing to the avant-garde movement and he also became a fashion photographer for magazines like Vogue.  It was also in Paris where he invented his “rayograph” which was essentially a photogram that used light sensitive paper and objects.  Unlike many other artists that we’ve seen, Man Ray also produced several films later on in his life.  In 1940, Man Ray left for Hollywood to escape the war going on in France at the time and stayed there for several years before going back to France to live for the rest of his life (Man Ray and His Artworks).

Man Ray’s artwork was definitely influenced by the cultural context of the time period.  At that time, there were large cultural movements especially in art where artists would reject the standard of art and adopt the unorthodox and unique forms of art instead.  Also around this time from 1914 to 1918 was World War I and it was from this that Dadaism emerged.  The cruelty and brutality of the war just confirmed the Dada artists’ belief in the deterioration of society (World War I).  From Dadaism emerged surrealism which similarly challenged the norms of artistic style.  Man Ray was influenced by these two art movements which were heavily influenced by the time period in which he lived.  Man Ray’s art intertwines with various course themes such as art and its purpose.  Since Man Ray’s art was heavily reflected Dadaism, we know with a certain confidence that the purpose of Man Ray’s art was to rebel against the norms of art and challenge the rational.  For Man Ray, art seemed to be a way to relay a message to its audience and we can see these messages in many of his art works.  One of Man Ray’s most famous art work is a sculpture called The Gift (1921) in which it consisted of two mundane objects- an iron with tacks attached to it.  This piece of work is the epitome of Dadaism and the work highlights the uselessness of such objects while posing questions about society in general.  One of Man Ray’s earliest “rayograph” was called The Kiss (1922).  For this rayograph, he used a pair of hands and two heads.  Another well-known art work is called Le Violon d’Ingres (1924) which is a modified photograph of Kiki de Montparnasse’s nude back.  He made her body to appear like a musical instrument by adding sound holes to her back (Jung).  In addition, Observatory Time: The Lovers (1936) is a painting of the lips of his past lover, Lee Miller, floating midair.  This painting is an ideal representation of a surrealist painting as it employs geometric shapes (Observatory Time).  This wide range of examples demonstrates the flexibility Man Ray had in his art skills as a painter, photographer, and inventor of a new kind of art.

Bibliography

“Cubism Movement, Artists and Major Works.” The Art Story. The Art Story Foundation, n.d. Web. 08 Oct. 2016.

“Expressionism.” Expressionism. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Oct. 2016.

Jung, Jin. “Man Ray Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works.” The Art Story. The Art Story Foundation, n.d. Web. 08 Oct. 2016.

“Man Ray.” Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 08 Oct. 2016.

“Man Ray and His Artworks.” Man Ray. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Oct. 2016.

“Observatory Time: The Lovers, 1936 by Man Ray.” Observatory Time: The Lovers, 1936 by Man Ray. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Oct. 2016.

“Surrealism Movement, Artists and Major Works.” The Art Story. The Art Story Foundation, n.d. Web. 08 Oct. 2016.

“World War I and Dada.” MoMA Learning. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Oct. 2016.

Amanda Zhang                                                                                       September 16, 2016

IDC 1001H                                                                                             Professor Hoffman

Robert Henri

Robert Henri, an American painter and teacher, is well known for being one of the main figures of the Ashcan School.  He was born as Robert Henry Cozad on June 25, 1865 in Cincinnati, Ohio.  Interestingly, Robert Henri was a distant cousin of Mary Cassatt, an American Impressionist.  A dispute with a local rancher over the right to pasture cattle on the land owned by the family turned gruesome when Cozad’s father shot the rancher (Sullivan Goss 1).  To escape the negative reputation gained by this terrible scandal, the entire family fled and changed their names.  Hence, Robert Henry Cozad became known as Robert Earle Henri.  Robert Henri was sent to a boarding school in New York while his parents went to Atlantic City in New Jersey where they all later reunited as a family.  In 1884, Henri attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts for four years where we studied under Thomas Anshutz and was introduced to Thomas Eakins, an American realist painter.  He also went Paris and attended Academie Julian and the Ecole des Beauz-Arts (Britannica 2).  It was in Paris where Henri adopted a liking for the Impressionist style of painting.  The Impressionist style is focused more on capturing the sensory and momentary effect of a scene rather than relying on accurate depictions (Justin Wolf).  When he came back to the United States, he became a teacher at the School of Design for Women in Philadelphia.  This is also the time when he gained a few dedicated followers and they soon became known as “The Charcoal Club” and its members became known as “The Philadelphia Four.”  Robert Henri briefly went back to Paris where he had his work exhibited and then he came back to New York City where he taught at the New York School of Art.  By then, Robert Henri had rejected his admiration for Impressionism and began leaning towards a more realistic style of art.  The pivotal point in his life that led to the many subsequent developments for which he is well known for came when he was elected to the National Academy of Design.  Henri was infuriated, however, when the realist works of his fellow colleagues were rejected from being displayed at an exhibition (Sullivan Goss 6).  Robert Henri rallied the Philadelphia Four plus three other artists to display their work at group exhibition at the Macbeth Gallery in New York City.  The eight painters later assimilated into what became known as the Ashcan School, which was an artistic movement that was known for its urban subject matter, especially the poorer urban areas, and its depiction of the “real” (Ashcan School Movement). Later on in his life, Robert Henri taught at the Arts Student League in New York.  In 1929, he unfortunately passed away in New York City.

Robert Henri’s works were produced in and around the Progressive Era, which was a time of reform movements in response to industrialization and urbanization (The Progressive Era).  This time period influenced what Henri painted and how he wanted to depict his subjects in his numerous portraits.  Urbanization especially played a large role in a lot of his paintings in that he Robert Henri’s Ashcan School flourished mainly around the same time that muckraking journalists were highlighting the dismal conditions of the slums, especially in New York City. Most of Henri’s paintings are portraits of people and in particular, he narrowed a few of his paintings to immigrants living in Lower Manhattan (Ashcan School Movement).  Immigration is a prevalent seminar theme and understandably so.  It’s interesting that Henri as well as the other artists in the Ashcan School chose New York immigrants as the subjects of their paintings.  However, unlike photographers like Jacob Riis who had a motive for reform behind their works, Robert Henri and most of the Ashcan School artists painted just to depict the rawness and realness of the subjects.  “They [Ashcan School] were neither social critics nor reformers” (Weinberg).  This ties in with another seminar theme of what exactly art is and what is its purpose.  For Robert Henri, the purpose behind his art is mainly to depict the reality of life, especially urban life and to bring that vitality out through his paintings.  He didn’t have a goal of wanting to reform the poor social and economic conditions of the immigrants living in the slums.  He wanted to paint the way he did because he admired the style of realism and rejected impressionism.  His works clearly show his propensity for realistic depictions of his surroundings and of people.  One great example of this is his painting “Snow in New York.”  This demonstrates the spontaneity of this painting and how real and rough it is.  It’s an accurate depiction of the realism that Robert Henri consistently embodies in his works.  Another example would be a portrait named “Willie Gee” and it’s a portrait of a little African American boy from New York.  This is an uncommon subject as child portraits traditionally tend to be children of rich people wanting to display their wealth and memorialize their children.  But Henri decided to draw this little boy just because he thought he’d be an interesting subject to paint.  Additionally, one would think that because of the reformative era in which Robert Henri created his works and the fact that he used immigrants as subjects of some of his portraits that he would be commenting and criticizing the economic conditions of those who are less fortunate.  But Robert Henri seems to be more focused and intent on the artistic and realistic aspects of what an immigrant subject can bring to his works.

Bibliography/Works Cited

“Ashcan School Movement, Artists and Major Works.” The Art Story. The  Art Story Foundation, n.d. Web. 16 Sept. 2016.

“Robert Henri.” Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 16 Sept. 2016.

“Robert Henri.” Sullivan Goss: An American Gallery. Sullivan Goss, n.d. Web. 16 Sept. 2016.

“The Progressive Era (1890 – 1920).” The Progressive Era (1890 – 1920). George Washington    University, n.d. Web. 16 Sept. 2016.

Weinberg, Author: H. Barbara. “The Ashcan School | Essay.” The Met’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Sept. 2016.

Wolf, Justin. “Impressionism Movement, Artists and Major Works.” The Art Story. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Sept. 2016.