Ray, Man

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US photographer, painter, and sculptor. He was active mainly in France and was associated with the Dada movement and then surrealism. One of his best-known sculptures is Gift (1921), a surrealist ready-made consisting of an iron on to which a row of nails has been glued.

Man Ray was born in Philadelphia, but lived mostly in Paris from 1921. He began as a painter and took up photography in 1915, the year he met the Dada artist Marcel Duchamp in New York. In 1922 he invented the rayograph, a black-and-white image obtained without a camera by placing objects on sensitized photographic paper and exposing them to light. He also used the technique of solarization (partly reversing the tones on a photograph). Among his photographs is Le Violon d'Ingres (1924), a nude woman viewed from the back so as to suggest a violin. His photographs include portraits of many artists and writers.

His autobiography, Self Portrait, apppeared in 1963.

Blue represents Finland's 60,000 lakes. White stands for the snow which covers the ground for 5–7 months each year. Effective date: 1 June 1978. >>