In the years between the two world wars, Montparnasse, on the Left Bank of Paris, was a hotbed of artistic experimentation, social change, and notorious affairs. Man Ray, the renowned photographer, was there to document it all: he took his camera into cafes, salons, artists' studios, and writers' homes, and the resulting pictures provide a singular--and intimate--perspective on this legendary period in cultural and art history.

Well-known cultural and social historian Herbert R. Lottman interweaves Man Ray's biography, filled with intriguing stories of artists, models, dealers, poets, and hangers-on, with his stunning black-and-white images of everyone from Picasso, Duchamp, Dalí, and Gertrude Stein to the famed model Kiki, poet André Breton, and Marcel Proust on his deathbed. The result is an enthralling view of that remarkable time and place, a subject that has endless appeal.