A prolific artist and member of the New York Abstract Expressionists, George McNeil produced paintings that ranged from entirely abstract to loosely representational. He studied under Hans Hofmann in the 1930s and went on to work for the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project in 1936. After serving in the U.S. Navy during WWII, he returned to art making, concentrating on abstract compositions from the 1940s into the 1950s. In the 1960s, he introduced figuration into his works in the form of roughly rendered beings that appeared to emerge from their abstract surroundings. By the 1970s, his exuberant canvases were filled with dancing figures, discos, and sports, images that captured the dynamism of his native New York. McNeil experimented up to the end of his life, when he was creating paintings that incorporated such mixed materials as sand, cloth, and magazine clippings.