Roland Penrose was a leading English Surrealist artist, and active as a writer, gallerist, curator, and collector. He experimented with the technique of frottage (from the French frotter, “to rub”), invented by Max Ernst: a means of eliciting accidental imagery by rubbing crayon or another similar material on paper placed over a textured surface. While at a glance the forms in this work evoke natural earth patterns, the image maintains an enigmatic aura. In the summer of 1938, Peggy Guggenheim exhibited two paintings by Penrose in the Exhibition of Contemporary Painting and Sculpture at her Guggenheim Jeune gallery in London. In November that year, Penrose curated Guggenheim's Exhibition of Collages, Papier-collés, and Photomontages, which included three of his own works.