{"data":{"id":"1075","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":1075,"topgoose_id":1310,"tms_id":1075,"display_name":"Man Ray","sort_name":"Man Ray","display_date":"1890–1976","begin_date":"1890","end_date":"1976","biography":"\u003cp\u003eMan Ray was the only American artist to play a leading role in the Dada and Surrealist movements, spending much of his career in Europe. The son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, he was born Emmanuel Radnitzky and adopted the pseudonym Man Ray at the outset of his career. After collaborating in New York with French Dadaists \u003ca href=\"/artists/1715\"\u003eMarcel Duchamp\u003c/a\u003e and Francis Picabia, Man Ray moved to Paris in 1921. During the following decade, he focused on photography, using the medium to portray members of his avant- garde Parisian milieu as well as to transform everyday objects into strange and disconcerting Surrealist compositions, as in this untitled photograph of a mannequin’s hand.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe shifted to painting in the\n1930s, creating Surrealist canvases such\nas\u003cem\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003e\u003ca href=\"/collection/works/257\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eLa Fortune\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e, which he produced shortly before fleeing Nazi-occupied Paris for Los Angeles. The composition is dominated by an oversized pool table, which looms over an uninhabited landscape and a sky filled with rainbow-hued clouds. Man Ray described the painting in relation to a string of personal associations: “I distorted the perspective of that table on purpose, I wanted it to look as big as a lawn. I could have had two people playing tennis on it.” The pool table also alludes to the Surrealist fascination with games and chance as creative springboards, while the spectrum of clouds evokes a painter’s palette, suggesting an allegory of artistic creation. The table’s lack of pockets indicates that the game, like all Surrealist propositions, will not follow rational rules or logic—but the painting’s title, meaning \u003cem\u003ewealth\u003c/em\u003e or \u003cem\u003eluck\u003c/em\u003e,\nseems to augur rewarding possibilities.\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":true,"artport":false,"biennial":false,"collection":true,"ulan_id":"500015030","wikidata_id":"Q46139","created_at":"2017-08-30T16:17:44.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-04-11T07:01:57.878-04:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/1075/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/1075/exhibitions"}}}}