Champs Delicieux

by Man Ray

In 1921, an up-and-coming artist named Man Ray convinced his patron, Ferdinand Howald, to pay his fare from New York to Paris and to support him there for a year. He quickly fell in with the Dadaists, and his art changed. He pioneered a new art form, a cameraless photograph he called the 'Rayograph'.Champs delicieux documents that year in Paris by reproducing the correspondence between Man Ray and Howald and by publishing Howald's personal copy of Ray's album (also Champs delicieux) from that year - the first significant body of Ray's work. By placing these images in the context of the letters, Champs delicieux recreates an important turning point in Ray's career and a definitive moment in art history.

This collection, exhibited in the fall of 2000 by co-publisher University of Toronto Art Centre, was edited by Steven Manford, who is currently assembling, with Timothy Baum, a catalogue raisonne of the Rayographs.

63 pages, Paperback

First published February 20, 2001

About the author

Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky), was an American artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. Perhaps best described simply as a modernist, he was a significant contributor to both the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal. Best known in the art world for his avant-garde photography, Man Ray produced major works in a variety of media and considered himself a painter above all. He was also a renowned fashion and portrait photographer.

While appreciation for Man Ray’s work beyond his fashion and portrait photography was slow in coming during his lifetime, especially in his native United States, his reputation has grown steadily in the decades since.

In 1999, ARTnews magazine named him one of the 25 most influential artists of the 20th century, citing his groundbreaking photography as well as "his explorations of film, painting, sculpture, collage, assemblage, and prototypes of what would eventually be called performance art and conceptual art" and saying "Man Ray offered artists in all media an example of a creative intelligence that, in its 'pursuit of pleasure and liberty,'" — Man Ray’s stated guiding principles — "unlocked every door it came to and walked freely where it would."