Man Ray

Man Ray was an American painter and photographer associated with the Dada and Surrealist 20th-century art movements. In 1931, a private power company in France commissioned Ray to create images that might promote the domestic use of electricity (French homes were still largely powered by natural gas, wood or coal). The result was a portfolio of ten photographs using Ray’s famous technique, rayograph, which consisted of using electrical appliances (light bulbs, a toaster, an iron, a fan) and electric light to cast the objects’ shadows on photographic paper.