One of a series of four out of six surviving monochrome paintings made by John Murphy between 1968-71, which he started while he was still a post-graduate student at Chelsea School of Art. Two were destroyed a flood at the artist's home in 1976. The Tate canvas was purchased at the artist's solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford by Sir Alan Bowness (1928-2021) for the Contemporary Art Society in 1972. It has an inscription on the reverse indicating that the painting was worked on the precise days: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 7th June, 1970. The series was influenced in part by the work of Barnett Newman. It was minimal in appearance but sought to address a metaphysical rather than a physical reality and to locate themselves at the place in which words and images cohere as poetry, evoking the work of French writer Marcel Proust. An earlier pink, orange and brown painting from the same series, originally titled ’12.8.69’, and now called Passing Time (1969) is in the Arts Council Collection.