American Abstract Artists Exhibition Catalog, 1938

Ray was a founding member of the American Abstract Artists in New York, a group that was formed to exhibit and promote abstract works of art and to facilitate discussions. The group defended abstract art that rejected all subject matter and pushed for greater representation at mainstream institutions, including at MoMA. They also organized exhibitions featuring the work of members and also more established artists, such as Piet Mondrian and Fernand Léger. This catalog published by the group in 1938 features a painting by Ray that is reproduced in black and white, but was almost certainly colorful in reality. Its abstract forms seem to fuse into a skull-shaped object in a composition that suggests depth through the interplay of form and line. Her longtime teacher Hans Hofmann used the term “push and pull” to refer to the technique he used to activate a sense of space in a picture.