Before he was able to speak French, just after arriving in Paris, Man Ray (1890-1976) was invited to Café Certa by his friend Marcel Duchamp, where he met poet Paul Éluard, among the other artists who would come to form the Surrealist movement, and began a long friendship with the French poet. Éluard wrote a poem in honor of Man Ray after becoming drawn to his need for solitude, and Man Ray consistently praised Éluard and his poetry. They worked together on the piece Facile, which combined Éluard's eulogies for Nusch, his wife, and Man Ray's tribute to Nusch's body. They also collaborated on Les mains libres, a collection of Man Ray's drawings accompanied by Éluard's poems. Man Ray created this color lithograph as an homage to his poet friend.
