chessboard had been a key image in Man Ray's work since as far back as 1911., when he had made the Tapestry, as well as other compositions based upon grids of squares. The famous Lips had begun as a similar grip upon a photograph of Kiki's mouth, "It helps you understand the structure, to master a sense of order," he wrote at the time. "When the ancient masters composed a painting, they used to divide the surface into regular squares."