Man Ray (Emmanuel Radnitzky; August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was a visual artist who spent most of his career in Paris. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal. He produced major works in a variety of media but considered himself a painter above all. He was best known for his photography, and he was a renowned fashion and portrait photographer. Man Ray is also noted for his work with photograms, which he called "rayographs" in reference to himself.
Ray’s assembled collages were linked to jazz with their improvised forms and rhythmic colors. A decade after the collages were made, they were replicated as stencil-colored prints in Paris, where Man Ray had settled in 1921. The portfolio was issued by Éditions Surréalistes, the publishing arm of the emergent Surrealist writers and artists of whom Man Ray was a leader.