A native of Poland, Adler settled in Düsseldorf in 1922 after having travelled to France and Spain. However, he left Germany in 1933 and worked for a while in Paris with Stanley W. Hayter. According to Hayter, the present painting, executed in 1941, is the changing point for the artist. "The structure and the organisation of the picture which were previously subsidiary to a demonstration of a simplified motif have become the dominant factors; the colour and surface texture which were attached to the individual objects shown, have been liberated from these objects and taken on an independent existence - conditioned only by the requirements of the pictorial unit. In the dialect of the critics that which was Expressionist has become classical." (Jankel Adler, London, 1941, p. viii).