Like many American artists, Alfred Maurer was forced to leave Paris in fall 1914 due to the outbreak of World War I. His return to New York coincided with the final phase of his mature career, which can be characterized by a pronounced shift toward abstraction and his most original compositions. The change initiated a highly productive period where Maurer redefined his artistic identity. As Stacey Epstein observed: “He never fully divorced himself from his appreciation for French art and life, nor did he denounce France as an important artistic source. He was part of a wave of artists and intellectuals grappling with the concept of their American identity following World War I, and, like some of his colleagues in the Stieglitz circle, he aspired to capture a sort of American spirit in his work, while not completely rejecting the European cultural heritage that had nurtured him." [1]

Maurer’s abstractions fall into two categories: images based on organic forms, as in the present composition, and those incorporating geometric and Cubist motifs. He often used the gouache medium for these experimentations, and here used bird features and feathers in a dynamic rhythm that reflects its source in the natural world.

[1] Stacey B. Epstein, Alfred Maurer: At the Vanguard of Modernism, 2015, 141.