German-born artist Eva Hesse immigrated with her family to the United States in 1939 to escape the Nazi regime. She studied at schools including the Pratt Institute and the Cooper Union in New York, and at the Yale University School of Art and Architecture. Hesse originally considered herself to be a painter, not turning to the sculpture for which she is now famous until the mid-1960s. Her early work emphasized the vibrant colors and biomorphic abstractions characteristic of first- and second-generation Abstract Expressionists.

After experimenting with the dark tones prevalent in Old Master drawings, she returned to her earlier style, as seen in this watercolor. Hesse made works on paper throughout her career, and Untitled is among her finest mid-career works. The composition displays complex, architectonic free-form abstractions, and it was executed at the pinnacle of a time when Hesse was known strictly as a painter. In 1964 and 1965, while on a year-long trip to Germany with her husband, sculptor Tom Doyle, Hesse began to create sculptures herself. During her brief mature period—before her death at age 34—Hesse continually experimented with new processes and materials in order to push the boundaries of art, moving beyond definitions of figuration or abstraction.