This photograph shows Georges Hugnet, an artist, poet, critic and bookbinder closely connected with the surrealist movement. Described by Virgil Thomson as 'small, truculent and sentimental', he was one of the earliest historians of Dada, publishing a book of essays on the movement in 1957. In 1934 Hugnet opened a small bookbinding shop in Paris, where he created unique and elaborate book covers for his surrealist colleagues. Hugnet retreated from surrealist circles in 1938, after a violent quarrel with André Breton.