This compact 1959 work captures Michael Goldberg at the height of New York School experimentation, when painting wasbecoming increasingly physical, fragmented, and improvisational. Combining collage with thick passages of oil paint, Goldbergbuilds the surface through abrupt shifts of texture, color, and material rather than traditional composition. Jagged planes of blue,brown, white, and ochre collide across the paper like torn architecture or accelerated movement, giving the work the energy ofsomething simultaneously constructed and collapsing.

Goldberg belonged to the second generation of Abstract Expressionists closely connected to the downtown New York scenesurrounding de Kooning, Kline, and the Cedar Tavern circle. Yet his work often pushed further toward spontaneity and urbanimmediacy, absorbing influences from jazz, collage, and the raw visual rhythm of the city itself. What makes the work compellingis its compression: the physical aggression and scale of postwar abstraction condensed into an intimate surface without losingintensity.

The work reflects a moment when Abstract Expressionism began breaking apart internally—moving away from heroic puritytoward fragmentation, material tension, and a more unstable contemporary visual language.

Goldberg belongs to the second-wave expansion of the Hamptons postwar artist community, where he maintained a studio andhome.