Alexander Archipenko (1887 – 1964) first conceived the form of The Ray (Vase Woman III, The Ray), an elongated, abstract figure of a woman, around 1918. He explored the figure numerous times in several variations and media, sometimes calling it Vase or Vase Woman and other times Ray, recognizing the flexibility of perception, as well as the relationship between animate and inanimate forms.
Photographed in The Brooklyn Museum