Top 51 Quotes & Sayings by Man Ray

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American photographer Man Ray.

Last updated on November 21, 2024.

Man Ray was an American 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 pioneering photography, and was a renowned fashion and portrait photographer. He is also noted for his work with photograms, which he called "rayographs" in reference to himself.

American - Photographer | August 27, 1890 - November 18, 1976

Source: Wikipedia

Don't put my name on it. These are simply documents I make.

Man Ray

One of the satisfactions of a genius is his will-power and obstinacy.

Man Ray

A creator needs only one enthusiast to justify him.

Man Ray

I photograph the things that I do not wish to paint, the things which already have an existence.

Man Ray

It has never been my object to record my dreams, just the determination to realize them.

Man Ray

An original is a creation motivated by desire. Any reproduction of an originals motivated be necessity. It is marvelous that we are the only species that creates gratuitous forms. To create is divine, to reproduce is human.

Man Ray

I paint what cannot be photographed, that which comes from the imagination or from dreams, or from an unconscious drive.

Man Ray

All critics should be assassinated.

Man Ray

To me, a painter, if not the most useful, is the least harmful member of our society.

Man Ray

Of course, there will always be those who look only at technique, who ask 'how', while others of a more curious nature will ask 'why'. Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information.

Man Ray

l photograph what l do not wish to paint and l paint that which l cannot photograph.

Man Ray

I have been accused of being a joker. But the most successful art to me involves humor.

Man Ray

Reality is fabricated out of desire.

Man Ray

Is photography an art? There is no point in trying to find out if it is an art. Art is old-fashioned. We need something else.

Man Ray

If the affairs of the world were put in the hands of the screwball artists, it couldn’t be in a worse state than it is now !

Man Ray

The tricks of today are the truths of tomorrow.

Man Ray

Dada cannot live in New York. All New York is dada, and will not tolerate a rival.

Man Ray

The complicated engines manufactured by men demand, if one really wants to use them, much calm. Ever since our love for machines replaced the love we used to have for our fellow man, catastrophes proceed to increase.

Man Ray

A camera alone does not make a picture. To make a picture you need a camera, a photographer and above all a subject. It is the subject that determines the interest of the photograph.

Man Ray

My works were designed to amuse, annoy, bewilder, mystify and inspire reflection.

Man Ray

I do not photograph nature. I photograph my visions.

Man Ray

Lipstick is the red badge of courage.

Man Ray

I am an economic person; I judge the amount of work involved with the amount of worth attained.

Man Ray

In the same spirit, when the automobile arrived, there were those that declared the horse to be the most perfect form of locomotion.

Man Ray

I never knew what I was doing until I was done.

Man Ray

Thanks to my effort in the last 40 years, there has been more paper and film wasted.

Man Ray

There is no progress in art, any more than there is progress in making love.

Man Ray

Each one of us, in his timidity, has a limit beyond which he is outraged. It is inevitable that he who by concentrated application has extended this limit for himself, should arouse the resentment of those who have accepted conventions which, since accepted by all, require no initiative of application. And this resentment generally takes the form of meaningless laughter or of criticism, if not persecution.

Man Ray

An original is a creation motivated by desire.

Man Ray

You don’t ask a writer what typewriter he uses.

Man Ray

I paint what cannot be photographed, something from the imagination... I photograph the things I don't want to paint, things that are already in existence.

Man Ray

Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information.

Man Ray

When I saw I was under attack from all sides, I knew I was on the right track.

Man Ray

To create is divine, to reproduce is human.

Man Ray

A certain amount of contempt for the material employed to express an idea is indispensable to the purest realization of this idea.

Man Ray

If I'd had the nerve, I'd have become a thief or a gangster, but since I didn't, I became a photographer.

Man Ray

I paint when I cannot photograph.

Man Ray

I have never painted a recent picture.

Man Ray

All my life I have painted pictures so that certain people would drop dead when they looked at them, but I have not succeeded yet. The worst painting cant hurt you, but a bad driver can kill you, a bad judge can send you to the chair, a bad politician can ruin an entire country, That is why even a bad painting is sacred.

Man Ray

I like contradictions. We have never attained the infinite variety and contradictions that exist in nature. Tomorrow I shall contradict myself. That is the one way I have of asserting my liberty, the real liberty one does not find as a member of society.

Man Ray

Just as I work with paints, brushes, and canvas, I work with the light, pieces of glass and chemistry.

Man Ray

An effort impelled by desire must also have an automatic or subconscious energy to aid its realization.

Man Ray

Quote me as much as you like; as a matter of fact I don’t even mind if you misquote me !

Man Ray

I believe in the relation between photography and music; And thats my inspiration.

Man Ray

Oh, yes, I was a great retoucher. A retoucher is an esthetic surgeon !

Man Ray

The streets are full of admirable craftsmen, but so few practical dreamers.

Man Ray

I would photograph an idea rather than an object, a dream rather than an idea.

Man Ray

I am not going to be dictated to by the size of the camera. I use everything from an 8 x 10 to a 35-mm. But I don't use these modern cameras which break down all the time !

Man Ray

Cut out the eye from a photograph of one who has been loved but is seen no more. Attach the eye to the pendulum of a metronome and regulate the weight to suit the tempo desired. Keep going to the limit of endurance. With a hammer well-aimed, try to destroy the whole at a single blow.

Man Ray

Nature does not create works of art. It is we, and the faculty of interpretation peculiar to the human mind, that see art.

Man Ray

Speaking of nudes, I have always had a great fondness for this subject, both in my paintings and in my photos, and I must admit, not for purely artistic reasons.

Man Ray

Top 51 Quotes & Sayings by Man Ray

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