Editing Man Ray (section)

===Background and early life===
[[File:Man Ray - (watercolor) Landscape (Paysage Fauve) - Smithsonian American Art Museum.jpg|thumb|upright|Man Ray, 1913, ''Landscape'' (''Paysage Fauve''),  watercolor on paper, 35.2 x 24.6 cm, [[Smithsonian American Art Museum]]]]

During his career, Man Ray allowed few details of his early life or family background to be known to the public. He even refused to acknowledge that he ever had a name other than Man Ray,<ref name= BaldwinBio>[[Neil Baldwin (writer)|Baldwin, Neil]]. ''Man Ray: American Artist''; Da Capo Press; {{ISBN|0-306-81014-X}} (1988, 2000)</ref> and his 1963 autobiography ''Self-Portrait'' contains few dates.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Rosenberg |first=Karen |date=2009-11-19 |title=Mercurial Jester, Revealing and Concealing |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/arts/design/20ray.html |access-date=2024-07-15 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

Man Ray was born Emmanuel Radnitzky in [[South Philadelphia]] on August 27, 1890.<ref>{{cite book |title=Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Photography |date=November 15, 2005 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781135205362 |editor-last=Warren |editor-first=Lynne |volume=2 |pages=1000 |chapter=Man Ray |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=31VsBgAAQBAJ&q=%22born+on+August+27,+1890%22&pg=PA1000}}</ref><ref name="Jewish Identity" /> He was the eldest child of [[History of the Jews in Russia#United States|Russian Jewish immigrants]]<ref name="Jewish Identity" /> Melach "Max" Radnitzky, a tailor, and Manya "Minnie" Radnitzky (née Lourie or Luria).<ref name="Federal Census">1900 United States Federal Census</ref> He had a brother, Sam, and two sisters, Dorothy "Dora" and Essie (or Elsie),<ref name="Federal Census" /> the youngest born in 1897 shortly after they settled at 372 Debevoise St. in [[Williamsburg, Brooklyn]].<ref name="Jewish Identity" /> In early 1912, the Radnitzky family changed their surname to Ray; Sam chose this surname in reaction to the antisemitism prevalent at the time. Emmanuel, who was nicknamed "Manny", changed his first name to Man and gradually began to use Man Ray as his name.<ref name=BaldwinBio/><ref name=Conv2Mod>[[Francis Naumann]], ''Conversion to Modernism: The Early Work of Man Ray''. Rutgers University Press: {{ISBN|0-8135-3148-9}} (2003).</ref>

[[File:Man Ray, Rencontre dans la porte tournante.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Man Ray, {{circa|1921}}–1922, ''Rencontre dans la porte tournante'', published on the cover (and page 39) of ''[[Der Sturm]]'', Volume 13, Number 3, March 5, 1922]]
Man Ray's father worked in a garment factory and ran a small tailoring business out of the family home. He enlisted his children to assist him from an early age. Man Ray's mother enjoyed designing the family's clothes and inventing [[patchwork]] items from scraps of fabric.<ref name=BaldwinBio/> Man Ray wished to distance himself from his family background, but tailoring left an enduring mark on his art. [[Mannequin]]s, [[Clothes iron|flat irons]], sewing machines, needles, pins, threads, swatches of fabric, and other items related to tailoring appear in much of his work,<ref name=HeydJewishID>Milly Heyd; "Man Ray/Emmanuel Rudnitsky: Who is Behind the Enigma of Isidore Ducasse?"; in ''Complex Identities: Jewish Consciousness and Modern Art''; ed. Matthew Baigell and Milly Heyd; Rutgers University Press; {{ISBN|0-8135-2869-0}} (2001).</ref> and art historians have noted similarities between Ray's collage and painting techniques and styles used for tailoring.<ref name=Conv2Mod/>

Mason Klein, curator of the exhibition ''Alias Man Ray: The Art of Reinvention'' at the [[Jewish Museum (Manhattan)|Jewish Museum]] in New York, suggests that Man Ray may have been "the first Jewish avant-garde artist."<ref name="Jewish Identity">{{citation | url=http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c347_a17217/The_Arts/Museums.html |date=November 10, 2009 |title=Man Ray's Jewish Identity: 'Concealing And Revealing' |first=Eric |last=Herschthal |work=[[The Jewish Week]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100127075614/http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c347_a17217/The_Arts/Museums.html |archive-date=January 27, 2010 |url-status=dead |quote=Klein suggests that Ray may have even been the first Jewish avant-garde artist, though it is a tenuous claim given both the movement and Man Ray's disavowal of ethnic identity.}}</ref>

Man Ray was the uncle of the photographer [[Naomi Savage]], who learned some of his techniques and incorporated them into her own work.<ref name="HellerHeller2013">{{cite book |author1=Jules Heller |author2=Nancy G. Heller|title=North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century: A Biographical Dictionary |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AYxmAgAAQBAJ&pg=PR11 |date=December 19, 2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-135-63882-5}}</ref>