Man Ray was an influential artist, best known for his avant-garde photography. He was a leading figure (and the only American) to play a significant role in the Dada and Surrealist movements.
Man Ray first concentrated on painting and later became friends with Dadaist artist Marcel Duchamp, who persuaded him to move to Paris. There, Man Ray moved in highly productive artistic circles full of Surrealists and Dadaists. He began taking photographs of his own (and other people’s) works of art and gradually became more interested in the photographic images than in the originals – which he regularly threw away or lost once he had photographed them.
By this time, commercial and art photography had become his main source of income and he was displaying an unbridled curiosity about the potential of the medium. This prompted a great urge to experiment and the discovery or rediscovery of various techniques, such as the famous "rayographs" (photograms made without the use of a camera). Man Ray left Paris to escape the Nazi occupation of France and moved to Los Angeles, where he abandoned commercial photography to concentrate entirely on painting and photographic experimentation. However, his next real surge of creativity occurred only after he returned to Paris; and much later died in 1976.
Very much ahead of his time................