Man Ray: Writings on Art

Jennifer Mundy's deft commentary examines and contextualises the importance of writing to Man Ray's creative output, offering a fresh look at a seminal twentieth-century artist.

Man Ray (1890-1976), a pioneer of the Dada movement and a central protagonist of surrealism, is best known for his innovative photographs, but his writings are also remarkable expressions of his identity as an artist. The first extensive collection of Man Ray's texts about art in English, Man Ray: Writings on Art illuminates the diverse ways in which the artist used words to express his aesthetic, philosophical and political ideas. Richly illustrated and drawing on a broad range of materials, including artists' books, essays, interviews, letters and visual poems, this collection presents the artist's most significant writings about art, many of them never previously published. Offering a long overdue vision of Man Ray as someone who used words both as a creative medium and as a means of articulating ideas about the nature and value of art, it provides a powerful insight for students and scholars of modern art, as well as for artists, photographers and all those who count themselves as Man Ray fans.