David Alfaro Siqueiros was one of los tres grandes (three giants) of the Mexican mural movement, and he had a decisive influence on the evolution of painting in the United States when he set up his Experimental Workshop in New York City in 1936 (where Jackson Pollock was one of his students). His Portrait of Eugene Jolas, was most probably painted the year that he moved to New York; however, his friendship with Jolas dated back to the early 1930s, when the two collaborated on Jolas's literary journal Transition. 

This portrait was never completed, possibly due to Siqueiros's departure from New York in 1937 to enlist in the International Brigade of the Spanish Civil War.  Even in its unfinished state, Portrait of Eugene Jolas is a fascinating composition, offering unique insight into Siqueiros's working method. Jolas's features are superimposed on a maelstrom of flung paint, a method which anticipates the techniques adopted by Pollock a decade later.