The muses of Emmanuel Radnitzky (Man Ray)

"All I need is an onion, a bit of bread, and a bottle of red."
"And I will always find somebody to offer me that."
Kiki de Montparnasse

Born in Burgundy, Alice Prin (Kiki de Montparnasse) was a model and muse of Man Ray. At the age of 12, she was working for a printer, then for bakery. Aged 14, she had a fight with the baker´s wife and started modelling nude for an elderly sculptor. She took to the streets, often sleeping in barns behind the Gare Montparnasse and washing in the Montparnasse cafes. She began posing for Chaïm Soutine, who christened her "Kiki". She quickly became a popular model, and was painted, sculpted and photographed by artists including Pascin, Derain and Óscar Dominguez. Kiki and Man Ray were lovers for six years, during which time he made hundreds of images of her. By the late 1920s, Kiki had her own cabaret, Chez Kiki. In 1953, at the age of 52, she collapsed and died.

After Kiki, American model Lee Miller was the apprentice and muse of Man Ray. Lee Miller grew up in Poughkeepsie, NY. She worked as a model for Conde Nast Vogue before arriving in Paris in 1927 and meeting Man Ray. In 1933, she moved back to The United States to set up a photo studio in New York. She went to Egypt, married and divorced there, and moved back to Paris, where she met her future husband, Roland Penrose at a surrealist dinner thrown by Max Ernst. During WWII she was a photojournalist for Vogue. During the 1950s and 1960s, her residence Farley Farm saw visiting artists such as Picasso, Man Ray, Henry Moore, Eileen Agar, Jean Dubuffet, Dorothea Tanning, and Max Ernst. Miller was investigated by the British security service MI5 during the 1940s and 50s on suspicion of being a Soviet spy. She died in 1977.