Carl Van Vechten · Public domain

Man Ray, born Emmanuel Radnitzky in Philadelphia, moved to Paris and became a central figure in Dada and Surrealism despite never fully committing to either movement's manifestos. He considered himself first a painter, but it's his photography that lasted: he pioneered the photogram, exposing objects directly onto photographic paper without a camera, and called the resulting shadow-images "rayographs" after himself.