Man Ray took a number of photos of the mathematical models he had seen during a visit to the Poincaré Institute in Paris. Even though those photos had not been considered as part of the corpus of his “surrealistic photos”, they represent the cross point of two main trends of the surrealistic movement of the 30s: the analysis of the idea of ‘object’ and modern science discoveries. André Breton, the father of surrealism, proposed that interpretation in his work “Crise de l’object”. For that reason, mathematical models were presented, in 1937, at the exhibition “L’art et la science” at the Palace de la Découverte in Paris.

The scope and function of mathematical models changed significantly in the space of a few decades. Mathematical models had been made with a prominent didactic aim. Later they were used to present scientific ideas to the general public. In the end, mathematical models became a source of inspiration for many artists. In Man Ray’s photos, through the use of particular exposure and a close focus, the astonishing artistic potential of these creations was highlighted.

Man Ray’s photos, as well as some mathematical models, were presented at three surrealists exhibitions in 1936: the Surrealist exhibition of art objects in Paris, at Charles Ratton; in London, at the New Burlington Galleries; and finally in New York city, at the Exhibition ‘Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism’. Later on, twelve of those photos were published in a special number of the ‘Cahiers d’Art ‘ that accompanied the exhibition at Charles Ratton. In an article of the same magazine, Breton wrote that “mathematical models respond to the will of transposing a scientific abstraction to an image” for example, to show “L’allure de la function elliptique P[U] pour G[2]=0 et G[3]=4. In that way, according to the surrealists, it is possible to access the real nature of the object.”