Oil on canvas board, c. 1955, in the gestural manner of the New York School. Approximately 18 x 24 inches, in its original stained strip frame.

The palette is pure 1950s studio: cadmium red and orange, chrome yellow and lead white dragged wet-into-wet over a dark ground until they break into olive, ochre, and slate. Color is built rather than blended — a working painter’s economy, using the ground as a compositional element rather than covering it.

The surface is Heavy palette-knife impasto standing in tiled slabs off the canvas, with striated verticals recalling de Staël and Riopelle. A residual landscape exists beneath the abstraction — a low horizon band, verticals reading as trunks or towers.

Unsigned? Sold as American School, c. 1950s, without attribution. Excellent stable condition, cured and craquelure-free