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Man Ray
Emmanuel Radnitsky was born in southern Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on August 27, 1890.\" \"Manny\" is the eldest of an Ashkenazi Jewish family of Russian descent. Her parents are Melach \"Max\" Radnitzky, a tailor, and Manya \"Minnie\" Radnitzky (née Lourie or Luria), a seamstress. He has a brother, Sam, and two sisters, Dorothy \"Dora\" and Essie (or Elsie), the youngest born in 1897, shortly after they moved to the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. He will be the uncle of photographer Naomi Savage.
In early 1912, the Radnitzky family changed their surname to Ray, under the initiative of Man Ray’s brother, who chose the surname in response to frequent anti-Semitism at the time. At the same time, Manny becomes \"Man\". Later, he would even refuse to acknowledge having had any name other than \"Man Ray\".
Father Radnitzky enlists his children to help him in his workshop.
Man Ray attended the Modern School at the Ferrer Center which operates in Manhattan and then Harlem, according to the principles of Catalan libertarian educator Francisco Ferrer. This anarchist formation is decisive since it frees him very early from respect for established values, desecrates in his eyes traditional techniques of expression and encourages him to follow only his own individual necessity in all his innovations.
Refusing any hierarchy between painting and photography, he regards the camera and brush as instruments equivalent to what the typewriter is for a writer.
