Born in Paris in 1900, Yves Tanguy traveled the world as a merchant marine, and began sketching café scenes after his service. In 1924, he moved into a house that would become a gathering place for the Surrealists. Although he lacked formal training, Tanguy developed as an artist, and he held his first solo exhibition in Paris in 1927. He met the artist Kay Sage in 1939, and together the couple traveled to the American Southwest and settled in Woodbury, Connecticut.

Tanguy’s paintings depict hallucinatory, imaginary worlds and fantastic landscapes, and this painting features the alien terrain that is typical of his work. The topography invokes a place of dreams, while the smoothly applied paint contributes to a feeling of strange liquefaction. In contrast to the invented setting, the forms within this strange universe are painted with a vivid clarity and realism. They appear to occupy the scene as towering monuments, casting strong shadows across the ground.