Recognized as a pioneer of modernism, Matta worked for a time in Le Corbusier's Paris office. There, he met Andre Breton who invited him to join the Surrealist group in 1937. Profoundly marked by his association with the Surrealists, Matta began to explore the realm of the subconscious inventing on canvas a universe disconnected from literary imagery. In 1939 he moved to New York where his work, especially his use of automatist techniques, had an undoubted influence on the coming generation of American Abstract Expressionists. In 1948 he returned to Europe and broke with the Surrealist movement. Hermala II is related to Matta's paintings of the mid-fortes in which mechanical- and insect-like shapes float in a space charged with a dynamic tension and overtones of menace and violence.