In the otherworldly watercolor The Metaphysical Wall, 1940, Masson revisits imagery he had explored two years earlier in a sketch that he later published in the prologue of his influential book Anatomy of My Universe, (New York, Curt Valentin, 1943) (see below). Tall male and female totemic figures flank a wall composed of colorful striations set on a plane within a larger horizontally striped universe. The figures stand in front of the wall and are mirrored in it as well. A crystalline form at bottom left encloses a skeletal being that is contrasted with a transparent ovoid fetus to its right that holds a living figure. These representations of life and death appear to emanate from a structure one writer has called the “temple of a mother goddess,” more clearly identifiable in the earlier drawing. Masson created this work in a period of crisis, as Germany invaded France, and he and his Jewish wife and family moved from place to place, eventually reaching Marseilles and escaping to America, with the help of BMA patron Saidie Adler May. At war’s end, Masson sent Saidie May The Metaphysical Wall in gratitude for her paying for his return passage to France.