Ray Johnson was a collagist but is best known as the progenitor of mail art with his New York Correspondence School, which he started in the l950s but which bloomed in the early 1960s.

Johnson was born in Michigan and went to Black Mountain College from l946 to l949, where he studied under Josef Albers. When he left to move to New York, he met painter/photographer Norman Solomon, with whom he started walking the streets at night, collecting bits and pieces from the streets.

Norman used his collections to nail to the walls as collages; Ray used his to cut up and mail to his friends. And soon he was asking his friends to mail items to other friends by writing "Please send to". Some of the mailings were forwarded, some were retu...