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The large majority of engravings signed by Surrealist artist Hans Bellmer were done not by him but by printmaker Cécile Reims. Initially kept secret, her role was ultimately revealed, and Bellmer’s “surrogate” was thus recognized as the true maker of the engravings. This article seeks to retrace the stages of this revelation and to explain its general mechanism, by re-situating things in the context of the print market, where trade practices are at odds with dominant artistic values and therefore must remain private or shrouded in mist. This case study will also show how a kind of creative relationship can be established between an artist and his or her surrogate, running against the totally independent, emancipatory aesthetics inherited from the avant-garde by relying on a mutual dependence that functioned in ways admirably grasped by Reims.