Max Ernst (1891-1976), painter and sculptor of German origin, is considered one of most prominent figures of surrealism, perhaps was the first to introduce his friend Man Ray to the collection of mathematical models that were kept in the Poincaré Institute in Paris. In any case, those models stirred the imagination of the German artist, who used them for the front cover of the catalog of the International Surrealist Exhibition, held in 1936, at the New Burlington Galleries in London. The Exhibition was a great success, and it was estimated that it was visited by 1,500 people a day. The photos of the mathematical models taken by Man Ray were shown as part of the collections. For the catalog front cover, Ernst created a collage representing the statue of a young man with a reptile head, surrounded by a series of mathematical models, including the Kuen surface.

Later, the German artist created many more collages and paintings inspired by mathematical models. Some examples are Feast of the God (1948, Albertina Museum, Vienna), Chemical Nuptials (1948, Max Ernst Museum, Bruehl), and Young Man Intrigued by the Flight of a Non-Euclidean Fly (1942-1947, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg), which contains different shapes that recall mathematical models, like the cyclide.