The couple

Born Emmanuel Radnitzky in 1890 in Philadelphia, Man Ray was a leading artist of 20th century America. Man Ray awakened to the European avant-garde art at Armory Show in 1913 in New York. In 1915 he met Marcel Duchamp who came from Paris to the United States, and subsequently started the New York Dada movement around 1917. In 1921, Ray moved to Paris where he interacted with Surrealist artists and became active in various fields, including photography, filmmaking, and object creation. A number of humorous objects aiming to deviate from traditional art concepts were produced.
The couple was produced in 1914, a year before Man Ray met Duchamp. Influenced by Picasso and Braque whose works Man Ray saw at Armory Show, he drew the couple lying over each other near trees in this cubism painting. Ray stopped producing oil paintings with nature as a motif after 1914.