Looking upward through the branches to a clear blue sky, Katz has painted a snapshot moment in time. The sprawling black lines of the branches reveal Katz’s interest in the drip paintings of American artist Jackson Pollock. He has been painting the American landscape since the 1950s, often inspired by summer residencies in Maine. Katz is well-known for his large paintings, whose bold simplicity and unmodulated colours are now seen as precursors of Pop Art. Small oil paintings such as this one are sketched from life and often intended to be scaled up into larger works, but their economic execution and visible brushstrokes reveal an intimate side to his practice. He says, "A sketch is very direct. It is working empirically, inside of an idea."