Man Ray and me

The commercial fashion-photographs for French Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and Vanity Fair were an important source of income and creative outlet for the restless art-experimenter Man Ray. In the 1920’s and 30’s Man Ray, staying true to his surrealist imagination, changed the way fashion was advertised and the manner in which the fashionable modern woman was perceived. The photographic inventions of Man Ray are still a treasure trove for rendering the display of fashions at once more playful and intelligent. We have therefore invited admirers of the œuvre of Man Ray, themselves professionally active in the world of fashion, to tell us with their own words or images why the œuvre of Ray matters so much to them. Our contributors are fashion- photographers themselves, or influential curators, critics, designers, editors, models and stylists of fashion. Many live and work in Paris, but also in Antwerp, Berlin, Firenze, London, Milan, Munich, New York or even in far away Australia. Yet once the pandemic is over they will all be in Paris again to make fashions or show and tell the way we want to dress.

Chris Dercon, President of the Réunion des musées nationaux - Grand Palais