Man Ray photographed in Paris by Carl Van Vechten, June 16, 1934. Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky, August 27, 1890 - November 18, 1976) was an American modernist artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. 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 photography, and he was a renowned fashion and portrait photographer. Ray is also noted for his work with photograms, which he called, rayographs, in reference to himself. He was forced to return from Paris to the United States due to the Second World War. He lived in Los Angeles, California from 1940 to 1951. A few days after arriving in Los Angeles, Man Ray met Juliet Browner, a a trained dancer and an experienced artists' model. They married in 1946 in a double wedding with their friends Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning. Nonetheless, he called France home and returned there. He died in 1976 from a lung infection at the age of 86. ARTnews magazine named Ray one of the 25 most influential artists of the 20th century. The publication cited his groundbreaking photography, "his explorations of film, painting, sculpture, collage, assemblage and prototypes of what would eventually be called performance art and conceptual art."