Masters of the Airbrush: Man Ray
- Mario Romani
- Jan 19
- 3 min read
Today I want to tell you about an artist few people know, and even fewer recognize as an airbrush artist. It is to him that we owe the first exhibition of airbrushed works in history (retouched photographs, abstract drawings, and more), as well as the first true attempt to elevate the airbrush to an artistic medium: Man Ray, born Emmanuel Radnitzky.
Man Ray was born in Philadelphia in 1890 to a Jewish family that had recently immigrated from Eastern Europe. He was simultaneously a painter, Surrealist photographer, filmmaker, object maker, and graphic designer, as well as a leading figure of Dadaism.
Man Ray is truly one of those figures in whom it is impossible to separate life from art, artistic research from visual invention. As early as 1918, he created some of the most celebrated works of the twentieth century, such as Le Violon d’Ingres, an image you have surely seen: a female nude with two violin sound holes carved at the level of her lower back, and Cadeau, an iron whose soleplate is lined with a row of nails. His creativity also found expression in the experimental films he made in the 1920s: Retour à la Raison, Emak Bakia, Les Mystères du Château du Dé, and Étoile de Mer, today unanimously regarded as masterpieces of Surrealist cinema.
Over the course of just a few years, Man Ray moved rapidly forward, experimenting with a wide range of techniques—from painting to airbrushing, from collage to cliché-verre—and styles, transitioning quickly from Cubism to Dadaism. This intense creative energy led him to work with the airbrush on photographic paper and, in 1920, to found the Société Anonyme, an organization through which he managed exhibitions, publications, installations, films, and conferences, among other avant-garde activities.
It was precisely in 1920 that Man Ray organized his first exhibition of airbrush works and airbrushed photographs in New York—an absolute novelty and a pure expression of artistic avant-garde—in which he employed gouache and spray/airbrush techniques on paper or cardboard. On this occasion, he also presented his “rayographs,” images created without a camera by placing objects directly onto photosensitive paper and exposing it to light. The result was abstract, formal, and visually striking: a bridge between painting, photography, and visual collage.
Unfortunately, New York at the time was rather sleepy and resistant to change, and perhaps the moment was not the most favorable. The exhibition was a resounding failure. Critics tore it apart, likely setting the stage for his move to Paris in 1921, the city where he would develop much of his career. For the airbrush, it was probably not yet the right time.
It was a tool so little known and so unconventional that the conservative art establishment outright rejected its ambitious debut. Man Ray’s career nonetheless continued between Paris and New York, spanning photography and painting, collaborations with magazines such as Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, and the creation of timeless photographic portraits of fellow artists including Picasso, Braque, Henri Matisse, and Max Ernst.
Man Ray was therefore the first, in “modern” times, to attempt to bring attention to the airbrush as a legitimate artistic instrument—a true precursor of what would unfold in later decades. It is to him—who passed away in 1976—that we owe gratitude for this visionary intuition, one that time has since proven to be well founded.
I mention this because right now, and until February 1, 2026, the first major retrospective in the United States is taking place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The exhibition explores Man Ray’s “radical reinvention” through his artistic experimentation, including rayographs, airbrush works, and other pieces connected to various experimental techniques.
📍 The Metropolitan Museum of Art – New York
🗓️ September 14, 2025 – February 1, 2026
Comments