Grigory Musatov (1889–1941), a member of the “first wave” of post-revolutionary Russian e'migre' artists, had been living and working in Czechoslovakia from 1920 until his death. Several of the paintings he made in 1931 resulted from his particular comprehension of the scientific and technical developments that were popular at that time. By combining a primitivist style with the visual features of pictorial, avant-garde and press-photography, as well as poster designs, Musatov created a series of ambiguous compositions. The article offers an analysis of these pieces in the context of Russian and European art and more broadly, in the context of the visual culture of the first decades of the twentieth century.