Willem de Kooning, born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, is regarded as one of the world's leading abstract expressionist artists. He moved to the United States in 1926 where he gained critical acclaim in the late 1940s for his abstract paintings. In 1953 he launched a groundbreaking series titled "Woman" that inspired representation of the human figure in new and controversial ways.

To celebrate the 1974 opening exhibition of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, an offset lithograph was reproduced from de Kooning's 1943 painting, Queen of Hearts. The original painting is owned by the Hirshhorn Musesum which has one of the largest collections of de Kooning's work in the world.