A leading modernist painter and printmaker, Tamayo was active in both Mexico and America, working at Atelier 17 in New York during the 1940s. He pursued traditional subjects in his art, typically avoiding the leftist political content found in the work of many of his fellow Mexican artists. He produced this austere nocturnal landscape using the intaglio process of mixografia, a three-dimensional printing technique he helped invent. It was developed to capture textures and surface details more commonly seen in painting, collage, or bas-relief. The labor-intensive process requires a high-pressure printing press to simultaneously emboss thick handmade paper and transfer one or more colors.