27 August: Man Ray

The artist Man Ray was born on this date in 1890. Here are 10 things you might not know about him:

1. His real name was Emmanuel Radnitzky. During his life, he refused to acknowledge his birth name at all. Emmanuel got shortened to “Manny” and then to Man, and his family changed its name to Ray in 1912.
2. Nor did he allow many details of his early life to be known. We do know that his family were Russian Jewish immigrants and that his father was a tailor. While Man Ray apparently wanted to distance himself from that background, the fact that he and his siblings were drafted in to help with the family business had a lasting influence on Man Ray’s art. Art historians have noted similarities between Ray's collage and painting techniques and styles used for tailoring.
3. At school, he showed a talent for art and drafting, and was offered a scholarship to study architecture. His parents were disappointed when he turned that down and study art, but nevertheless, converted his room into a studio.
4. He married his first wife, Belgian poet Adon Lacroix (Donna Lecoeur) in 1914. They separated in 1919, but weren’t formally divorced until 1937. His second wife was a dancer called Juliet Browner who he married in 1946. It was a double wedding with their friends Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning.
5. He also had numerous affairs. One was Lee Miller, who inspired one of his famous pieces after she left him for an Egyptian businessman. The work was called Indestructible Object (or Object to be Destroyed) was originally intended to stay in his studio. It consisted of a metronome with a picture of Lee Miller’s eye attached to the pendulum. Instructions attached to it read, “Cut out the eye from a photograph of one who has been loved but is seen no more. Attach the eye to the pendulum of a metronome and regulate the weight to suit the tempo desired. Keep going to the limit of endurance. With a hammer well-aimed, try to destroy the whole at a single blow.”
6. One of the techniques he used was to place objects on photographic film and expose it to light. These pieces came to be known as “rayographs” and would include objects like coils of wire and drawing pins.
7. In 1935 he created a self portrait called Space Writings in which he used a penlight to create swirls and loops in front of his face. It was over 70 years later before anyone noticed that the swirls and loops contained his signature. That person was a photography professor and fan of his work, Ellen Carey. How come nobody had noticed? It was a mirror image, so the signature only became obvious when held up to a mirror.
8. Man Ray didn’t often sign his work but would often include things that might represent his name, such as hands (the French word for hand being “main”).
9. He’d support himself financially by taking portrait photographs of people, many of whom were well known at the time. His subjects included André Breton, Jean Cocteau, Marcel Duchamp, James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, Marcel Proust, Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali.
10. He died in Paris on in 1976, from a lung infection. He was buried in the Cimetière du Montparnasse in Paris. His epitaph reads "unconcerned, but not indifferent". When his wife Juliet died in 1991, she was buried in the same tomb. Her epitaph reads "together again".

Killing Me Softly

Sebastian Garrett is an assassin. It wasn’t his first choice of vocation, but nonetheless, he’s good at it, and can be relied upon to get the job done. He’s on top of his game.

Until he is contracted to kill Princess Helena of Galorvia. She is not just any princess. Sebastian doesn’t bargain on his intended victim being a super-heroine who gives as good as she gets. Only his own genetic variant power saves him from becoming the victim, instead of Helena. 

Fate has another surprise in store. Sebastian was not expecting to fall in love with her.

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