In 1921, Man Ray held his first solo exhibition at Galerie Six in Paris. The exhibition featured paintings, aerographs, and collages that he had brought from New York. However, there was one additional work that did not appear in the exhibition catalogue. As a gift for Philippe Soupault, the owner of the gallery, Man Ray created an object consisting of a ready-made flatiron—of the type heated on a coal stove—with fourteen tacks attached to its base.By combining opposing functions—the smooth surface of an iron designed to remove wrinkles from fabric and the sharp protruding tacks that would tear the cloth—Man Ray transformed familiar objects into something entirely new and unexpected. The original work, however, disappeared from the gallery on the day of the exhibition, having reportedly been either stolen or discarded by a cleaning woman. As a result, the object never fulfilled its intended role as a gift from Man Ray, the son of a tailor, to Philippe Soupault.