Editing Man Ray (section)

===First artistic endeavors===
[[File:Man Ray, 1919, Seguidilla, airbrushed gouache, pen & ink, pencil, and colored pencil on paperboard, 55.8 x 70.6 cm, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.jpg|thumb|Man Ray, 1919, ''Seguidilla'', airbrushed gouache, pen & ink, pencil, and colored pencil on paperboard, 55.8 × 70.6&nbsp;cm, [[Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden]], [[Smithsonian Institution]], Washington, D.C.]]

Man Ray displayed artistic and mechanical abilities during childhood. His education at Brooklyn's [[Boys and Girls High School|Boys' High School]] from 1904 to 1909 provided him with solid grounding in [[technical drawing|drafting]] and other basic art techniques. While he attended school, he educated himself with frequent visits to local art museums. After his graduation, Ray was offered a scholarship to study architecture but chose to pursue a career as an artist. Man Ray's parents were disappointed by their son's decision to pursue art, but they agreed to rearrange the family's modest living quarters so that Ray's room could be his studio.<ref name=BaldwinBio/> The artist remained in the family home over the next four years. During this time, he worked steadily towards becoming a professional painter. Man Ray earned money as a commercial artist and was a [[Technical illustration|technical illustrator]] at several Manhattan companies.<ref name=BaldwinBio/><ref name=Conv2Mod/>

The surviving examples of his work from this period indicate that he attempted mostly paintings and drawings in 19th-century styles. He was already an avid admirer of contemporary avant-garde art, such as the European modernists he saw at [[Alfred Stieglitz]]'s [[291 (art gallery)|291]] gallery and works by the [[Ashcan School]]. However, he was not yet able to integrate these trends into much of his own work. The art classes he sporadically attended, including stints at the [[National Academy of Design]] and the [[Art Students League of New York|Art Students League]], were of little apparent benefit to him. When he enrolled at the [[Ferrer Center and Colony|Ferrer Centre]] in the autumn of 1912, he began a period of intense and rapid artistic development.<ref name=Conv2Mod/> The Centre, established and run by [[Anarchism|anarchists]] in memory of the executed Catalan anarchist educationalist [[Francisco Ferrer]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Veysey |first=Laurence |title="The Ferrer Colony and Modern School". In: The Communal Experience: Anarchist and Mystical Counter-Cultures in America. |publisher=Harper & Row |year=1973 |isbn=978-0-06-014501-9 |location=New York |pages=77–177}}</ref> provided classes in drawing and lectures on art-criticism.<ref name="Conv2Mod" /> There [[Emma Goldman]] noted "a spirit of freedom in the art class which probably did not exist anywhere else in New York at that time."<ref name="Conv2Mod" /> Man Ray exhibited works in the Centre's 1912-13 group exhibition, with his painting ''A Study in Nudes'' reproduced in a review of the show in the Centre's associated magazine ''The Modern School''.<ref name="Conv2Mod" /> This may have been Man Ray's first published art work, and the magazine would go on to print his first published poem (''Travail'') in 1913. During this period he also contributed illustrations to radical publications, including providing the cover-art for two 1914 issues of Emma Goldman's journal [[Mother Earth (magazine)|Mother Earth]].<ref name="Conv2Mod" />[[File:Man Ray, 1920, The coat-stand (Porte manteau).jpg|thumb|left|upright|Man Ray, 1920, ''The Coat-Stand'' (''Porte manteau''), reproduced in New York dada (magazine), Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray, April 1921<ref>[http://bibliothequekandinsky.centrepompidou.fr/clientBookline/service/reference.asp?INSTANCE=incipio&OUTPUT=PORTAL&DOCID=0473982&DOCBASE=CGPP New York dada (magazine), Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray, April, 1921], Bibliothèque Kandinsky, Centre Pompidou</ref>]]
[[File:Man Ray, Lampshade, 391, n. 13, July 1920.jpg|thumb|upright|Man Ray, ''Lampshade'', reproduced in [[391 (magazine)|391]], n. 13, July 1920]]
[[File:Man Ray, Dessin.jpg|thumb|upright|Man Ray, {{circa|1921}}–22, ''Dessin'' (''Drawing''), published on page 43 of ''[[Der Sturm]]'', Volume 13, Number 3, March 5, 1922]]

Man Ray's work at this time was influenced by the avant-garde practices of European contemporary artists he was introduced to at the 1913 [[Armory Show]]. His early paintings display facets of [[cubism]]. After befriending [[Marcel Duchamp]], who was interested in showing movement in static paintings, his works began to depict movement of the figures. An example is the repetitive positions of the dancer's skirts in ''The Rope Dancer Accompanies Herself with Her Shadows'' (1916).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3AAD%3AE%3A3716&page_number=5&template_id=1&sort_order=1 |title=The Collection &#124; Man Ray. The Rope Dancer Accompanies Herself with Her Shadows. 1916 |publisher=MoMA |access-date=January 6, 2012}}</ref>

In 1915, Man Ray had his first solo show of paintings and drawings after taking up residence at an art colony in [[Grantwood, New Jersey]].<ref>Staff. [https://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10D14FF345C137B93CBA8178AD95F428785F9 "Man Ray Is Dead in Paris at 86; Dadaist Painter and Photographer"], ''[[The New York Times]]'', November 19, 1976. Retrieved December 15, 2013. "His style changed in 1915 to 'reducing human figures to flat-patterned disarticulated forms.' He was living at the time in Ridgefield, N.&nbsp;J."</ref> His first proto-Dada object, an assemblage titled ''Self-Portrait'', was exhibited the following year. He produced his first significant photographs in 1918, after initially picking up the camera to document his own artwork.<ref name="auto">{{cite book|last1=Ray|first1=Man|year=1999|title=Self Portrait: Man Ray|edition=First paperback|publisher=Bulfinch|isbn=0-8212-2474-3|language=en}}</ref>

Man Ray abandoned conventional painting to involve himself with the radical [[Dada]] movement. He published two Dadaist periodicals, that each only had one issue, ''The Ridgefield Gazook'' (1915) and ''TNT'' (1919), the latter co-edited by [[Adolf Wolff]] and [[Mitchell Dawson]].<ref>{{cite thesis |last=Husar |first=Emma |date=2017 |title=In the Spirit of Dada Man Ray, The Ridgefield Gazook, and TNT |type=Honors |publisher=University of Iowa |url=https://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1123&context=honors_theses |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171105201555/http://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1123&context=honors_theses |url-status=dead |archive-date=November 5, 2017 |access-date=January 7, 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://mms.newberry.org/xml/xml_files/Dawson.xml |title=Inventory of the Mitchell Dawson Papers, 1810-1988 |website=The Newberry |access-date=January 7, 2019 |archive-date=January 8, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190108100726/https://mms.newberry.org/xml/xml_files/Dawson.xml |url-status=dead }}</ref> He started making objects and developed unique mechanical and photographic methods of making images. For the 1918 version of ''Rope Dancer'', he combined a spray-gun technique with a pen drawing. Like Duchamp, he worked with [[Readymades of Marcel Duchamp|readymades]]—ordinary objects that are selected and modified. His readymade ''[[The Gift (sculpture)|The Gift]]'' (1921) is a [[Clothes iron|flatiron]] with metal tacks attached to the bottom, and ''Enigma of Isidore Ducasse''<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.imj.org.il/imagine/collections/item.asp?table=comb&itemNum=194410 |title=IMAGINE – The Israel Museum's searchable collections database |publisher=Imj.org.il |access-date=January 6, 2012}}</ref> is an unseen object (a sewing machine) wrapped in cloth and tied with cord. ''Aerograph'' (1919), another work from this period, was done with airbrush on glass.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.stedelijk.nl/en/artwork/27789-aerograph |title=Man Ray, ''Aerograph'', 1919, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam |access-date=June 18, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150618235648/http://www.stedelijk.nl/en/artwork/27789-aerograph |archive-date=June 18, 2015 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

In 1920, Man Ray helped Duchamp make his ''[[Marcel Duchamp#Kinetic art|Rotary Glass Plates]]'', one of the earliest examples of [[kinetic art]]. It was composed of glass plates turned by a motor. That same year, Man Ray, [[Katherine Dreier]], and Duchamp founded the [[Société Anonyme (art)|Société Anonyme]], an itinerant collection that was the first museum of [[modern art]] in the U.S. In 1941 the collection was donated to [[Yale University Art Gallery]].<ref name="Cabanne, P">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4SNKDgAAQBAJ&dq=cabanne%2C+Marcel+Duchamp+military+service&pg=PT14|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20171115143609/https://books.google.com/books?id=4SNKDgAAQBAJ&pg=PT14&dq=cabanne,+Marcel+Duchamp+military+service&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwje6oi3mMDXAhXHWxQKHTsbBb8Q6AEIKDAA|url-status=dead|title=Dialogues With Marcel Duchamp|first=Pierre|last=Cabanne|date=July 21, 2009|archivedate=November 15, 2017|publisher=Hachette Books|isbn = 9780786749713|via=Google Books}}</ref>

Man Ray teamed up with Duchamp to publish one issue of ''[[New York Dada]]'' in 1920. For Man Ray, Dada's experimentation was no match for the wild and chaotic streets of New York.<ref name="pbs.org">{{cite web |url=https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/man-ray/prophet-of-the-avant-garde/510/ |title=Man Ray – Prophet of the Avant-Garde &#124; American Masters |publisher=PBS |date=September 17, 2005 |access-date=January 6, 2012}}</ref> He wrote that "Dada cannot live in New York. All New York is dada, and will not tolerate a rival."<ref name="pbs.org"/>

In 1913, Man Ray met his first wife, the Belgian poet Adon Lacroix (Donna Lecoeur) (1887–1975), in New York. They married in 1914, separated in 1919, and formally divorced in 1937.<ref>Lacroix's first marriage had been to Adolf Wolff, an immigrant anarchist sculptor and poet, born in Brussels, Belgium.</ref>