From 1937-1939, Weston received a Guggenheim Fellowship, which allowed him both new artistic and financial freedom. For Weston, the "Guggenheim Years" became a period of travel and exploration, during which he made close to fourteen hundred negatives. In January 1939, Weston and Charis Wilson toured the lots at MGM Studios. He made three pictures of mannequins on the lot, the image offered here, one with one figure and one without mannequins. Weston saved twenty negatives from the day's shooting, of which this is likely to be the most well-known.

Other prints of this image are included in the following collections: The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington; and Special Collections, University of California, Santa Cruz.