Man Ray and Gerald Murphy: artistic collaboration and influence

¶ … American Artists in Paris

Europe had given the United States so much in terms of cultural achievements over the centuries; but the dawn of the twentieth century saw the United States giving cultural gifts back into Europe. Man Ray and Gerald Murphy were both American artists who took up residence in Paris in the early twentieth century. Together with other American artists, they helped modernize the art scene in Europe, bringing with them abstract concepts and practices that forever influenced European art.

The first artist to be explored in this analysis is Man Ray, originally born Emmanuel Radnitzky in 1890. Man Ray began to show artistic talent very early on. He was educated within traditional fine arts, a basis for his later artistic expression that broke the rules but with regard to artistic licensing. In fact, Man Ray's first career choice was to actually be an architect (Baum et al., 1989). In the United States, he worked as a commercial artist as well. During his time in the States, Man Ray's primary medium was oil paint (Bizardel, 1960). He later moved to Paris very early on in his artistic career in 1921, where he helped popularize the Dada and Surrealist movements (Turner et al., 1996). Here, art was turned upside down and correlated with multi-media artistic influences. Man Ray toyed with abstract photography, manipulating images and generating artistic expression in a new field. Using his newly created solarization techniques which he often used in his portraits, Man Ray revolutionized how film could be manipulated into artistic expression (Baum et al., 1989). At the end of the 1920s, Man Ray began experimenting with film more and more, straying away from his roots as an oil painter. His many short films broke the mold in terms of genre and presented a new way to utilize film as an artistic medium.

Gerald Murphy was another American from the East Coast that ended p far away from home, making a name for himself and his art in France. Murphy spent most of his time on the French Rivera, but also visited Paris often, contributing enormously to the art scene that was developing so rapidly (Bizardel, 1960). However, unlike Man Ray, Murphy really did not dabble in art until he reached Paris. Ray had painted and worked as an artist in the States for years before moving to France. Murphy, on the other hand, was a working class man until he began painting without as much formal training after he had already moved to France (Turner et al., 1996). Murphy moved to France after marrying Sara Sherman Wiborg, and together, the two took the Parisian art scene by storm (Rothschild, 2007). During his time in France, Murphy took up still paintings, but without the traditional realism that had been attached to the genre before the twentieth century. Murphy's still lifes were incredibly abstract, yet still reminiscent of the object they resembled in real life. He also painted in cubist and precionist styles, making him a leader in more modern conceptions of abstract artistic expression at the time (Groseclose & Vierich, 2009). He was incredibly influenced by American Jazz music, which he brought with him from the States to France. There, he was well received based on a growing fascination with American culture and abstract forms of artistic expression.