Named after one of Man Ray's final works, produced in Paris in 1971, "Perpetual Motif" featured over 250 works spanning the artist's entire career. Merry A. Foresta organized this exhibition for the National Museum of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., and it later traveled to the Philadelphia Museum of Art under the curatorial supervision of Ann Temkin. Along with the Smithsonian Instituion's Special Exhibition Fund, additional support was provided by the National Endowment for the Arts and an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and Humanities as well as The Pew Charitable Trusts and The Bohen Foundation in Philadelphia.