André Masson, born January 4, 1896, is a major figure of the Surrealist movement and is considered one of the fathers of automatism, and a powerful influenceur of the Abstract Expressionist movement born in New York in the 1940s. Masson's career as a Surrealist would really take shape in 1922, after he moved to the Atelier Blomet, which would become to the Surrealists what the Bateau Lavoir was to the Cubists. His close contact with Joan Miro took Masson's artistic production to a new, irrational level. A few years later, Masson would become one of the most important artists to sign with Galerie Simon, the gallery of the famous art dealer Henri Kanhweiler. Masson's involvement with his dealer, and the gallery's artists, notably Juan Gris, kept the cubism essential to Masson's early surrealist work. Along with fellow artists such as Joan Miro and Max Ernst, Masson continued to push the boundaries of experimentation, integrating diverse techniques, materials and media into his production. In 1927, Masson began experimenting with sculpture, using terracotta, clay and plaster.

The Catalogue raisonné of André Masson's sculptures includes twenty-six works, including "Dans la forêt", 1943, a work from the artist's American period. Encouraged by the Due Ci gallery in Rome, André Masson returned to his sculptures in the early 1980s and decided to devote his time to producing bronze casts of his sculpted works. From this initiative came enlarged versions of the artist's works, complementing what had been one of the richest productions of any twentieth-century artist. These works were presented by the gallery at the finds of the 1980s in Rome, followed by exhibitions in Cologne and Auxerre devoted to the artist's sculptural works. In 2017, the Musée de l'Hospice Saint- Roch paid tribute to Masson's sculptures to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the artist's death.