After Kurt Seligmann settled in Paris, his sinister, biomorphic compositions gained the attention of André Breton, who invited him to join the Surrealist group in 1937. With the outbreak of World War II, Seligmann became the first Surrealist to arrive in New York and was instrumental in the emigration of most of the movement’s leading figures. Transformed by contact with new cultures, Seligmann’s work continued to evolve, and as the Surrealists’ acknowledged expert on magic, he infused his paintings with mythology and esotericism. Indeed, the year he made this work, he published The Mirror of Magic, a history of the occult. The winding forms and mystical quality of this canvas would influence a new generation of American artists, including his student, Robert Motherwell.