The Hungarian artist Ada Ackermann, known as Foto Ada, was a studio photographer by day and by night produced surreal photomontages that expressed the social and political anxieties in the years leading up to World War II. In this image, the sailors and ships have become monstrous, with half-human and half-machine elements. In a climate of fear created by Nazi propaganda and the rise of fascism, these personal compositions were kept hidden from public view during Ackermann’s lifetime. Sadly, the artist disappeared in 1944, likely killed during the Nazi invasion of Budapest or sent to her death in a German concentration camp.