Michael Goldberg's small-scale oil on paper was executed eight years after the Ninth Street Show and is a brilliant example of his animated and abstracted brushwork. Goldberg was not only a painter but a pivotal figure within the New York and East Hampton art scenes along with Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, fellow admirers of the Long Island landscape. As part of the early 1950s New York School, Goldberg was close friends with other abstract painters including Norman Bluhm, Grace Hartigan, and Joan Mitchell. Goldberg was also a muse to Frank O'Hara, the illustrious writer, poet and art critic, who wrote poems inspired by and dedicated to Goldberg.
By the year of this work's creation, 1959, Goldberg began to receive extensive recognition for his practice. Represented by Martha Jackson Gallery, his lyrical and improvisational compositions struck a chord with collectors and admirers of the newly abstract aesthetic.