In the 1950s over sixty million telephone books were distributed annually in the United States. For Franz Kline the thin pages, which could easily be removed from the book, were a free and readily renewable source of artistic material. Known for his black-and-white compositions, phone book pages appealed to him because they shared that same palette. Many of Kline’s phone-book drawings were preparatory images for larger paintings on canvas. He did not intend these sketches for display, but in some instances—as in this work—he added his signature, signifying that he considered them to be completed works of art.