Pollock painted this image in 1942 during his employment through the Federal Art Project, the visual arts arm of the Depression-era Works Progress Administration. Its style reflects his years as a student of Thomas Hart Benton, whose works, including one at station 9 of our tour, are displayed on the second floor of the museum’s North Wing. It also evinces the inspiration he culled from the Mexican Mural Renaissance. Just a few years later, however, Pollock would abandon social realism in favor of abstract expressionism and color-field painting.