The vivid, interlocking planes of color in this work are examples of Synchronism, the art movement created in Paris by American artists Morgan Russell and Stanton MacDonald-Wright in 1913. Synchronism used dynamic combinations of color to define abstract forms. Russell was influenced by his studies of color theory and by Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, whom he met through fellow expatriates Gertrude and Leo Stein, the sister and brother who encouraged many young American artists and writers in early 20th-century Paris.

Excerpt from

William Keyse Rudolph, DMA label copy, 2005.

• This painting, executed on painted tissue paper, is meant to be illuminated from behind—it is housed in a box with a fluorescent light inside so that light shines through the painted tissue paper.