Born in Luton, John Plumb studied in London at Byam Shaw and the then Central School of Art and Design (now Central Saint Martins). Plumb's participation in the subversive and fêted 1960 and 1961 exhibitions Situation propelled him and his peers to the fore of contemporary British Art, and Plumb would go on to have a series of solo exhibitions at the Marlborough and Axiom galleries London, and the Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol.

Plumb adjusted his working practice at several points throughout his career. The present work likely dates to the early 1970s and belongs to a group of paintings in which the artist purposefully removed himself from certain choices. He would lay linear grids or structures across his can...