Matta was a leading member of the original Surrealist circle, a group of artists who, in the 1920s and 1930s, drew their imagery from dreams and the subconscious mind. Matta's paintings, with their vaporous, biomorphic forms, directly influenced the early works of a number of American painters, including Robert Motherwell and Jackson Pollock.

In Cat for Piano Matta painted a dreamlike image of an excited feline and a metamorphosing, embryonic mass. This animated, electrically charged painting is highlighted by fantastical images of germinating plant life and explosive color accents. The palette Matta employs in this painting shows the influence of an extended stay in Mexico in the 1940s, where he studied the effects of sunlight on the landscape.