Man Ray was born Emmanuel Radnitsky, the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants who had settled in Philadelphia. In his early twenties he changed his name -- after years of being taunted because of its foreign sound. Ray's talents were obvious even in childhood. He was skilled at building, repairing, in
"Since the age of the cave-dwellers, art has done nothing but degenerate." So said Joan Miro, one of the most unique painter-sculptors of the twentieth century. Miro's statement, aside from revealing his views on the history of art, also says something about his own artistic aims. He wanted to br
One of the early experimenters with the telephoto lens, Penn perceived photography as a distillation of reality, rather than an elaboration upon it. He achieved deliberately structured compositions by borrowing from the natural northern lighting of traditional European painters.
His first cover f
In 1947, Christian Dior put Paris back in the center of the fashion universe with his "New Look." The new style melded the best of the Belle Epoque with the most advanced styling techniques of the times. Poetic, romantic, and classical, Dior provided the world with a glamorous, modernized version of