Man Ray described Fair Weather as the culmination of his Surrealist career. The mannequin figure may be a coded self-portrait and the painting contains quotations from a few of his earlier paintings.

Fair Weather is also a nightmarish premonition of the Second World War; the bombarded stone wall and puddle of blood are two of its more direct symbols of violence. The artist left this painting behind when he departed Europe for his native United States in 1940, but he eventually reclaimed it and kept it for the rest of his life.